Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV, commissioned architect Louis Le Vau, painter Charles Le Brun, and landscape architect André Le Nôtre to design and decorate his château in Vaux, southeast of Paris, nearly completed in 1658 when Fouquet was arrested, accused of misusing public money, and imprisoned for life.

Enchanted by Vaux-le-Vicomte, or perhaps jealous of Fouquet’s château, Louis XIV commissioned the same three designers to build his “château,” or palace, to be one hundred times larger and grander than Vaux at Versailles.

We visited Vaux on Saturday (a bus from the train station to the château only operates on weekends) and Versailles on Sunday, in order to see the opulent Musical Fountains Show in the gardens.