No man more fully recognized the great change that was going on, or did more to help it forward, than Nicolas Fouquet, Vicomte de Vaux, and Marquis de Belleile,--but better known as the _Surintendant_. In the pleasant social annals of France, Fouquet is the type of splendor, and of sudden, hopeless ruin. "There was never a man so magnificent, there was never a man so unfortunate," say the lively gentlemen and ladies in their _Memoires_. His story is told to point the old and dreary moral of the instability of human prosperity. It is, indeed, like a tale of the "Arabian Nights." The Dervish is made Grand Vizier. He marries the Sultan's daughter. His palace owes its magical beauty to the Genies. The pillars are of jasper, the bases and capitals of massive gold. The Sultan frowns, waves his hand, and the crowd, who kissed the favorite's slipper yesterday, hoot and jeer as they see him pass by to his dungeon, disgraced, stripped, and beaten, Fouquet was of good family, the son of a Councillor of State in Louis XIII.'s time. Educated for the magistracy, he became a _Maitre des Requetes_ (say Master in Chancery) at twenty, and at thirty-five _Procureur-General_ (or Attorney-General) of the Parliament of Paris, which was only a court of justice, although it frequently attempted to usurp legislative, and even executive functions. During the rebellious troubles of the Fronde, the Procureur and his brother, the Abbe Fouquet, remained faithful to Mazarin and to the throne. The Abbe, in the ardor of his zeal, once offered the Queen his services to kill De Retz and salt him, if she would give her consent. It was at the request of the Queen that the Cardinal made the trusty Procureur _Surintendant des Finances_, the first position in France after the throne and the prime-ministership.