Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. 2)

ANECDOTE REGARDING NICOLAS FOUQUET, SUPERINTENDENT OF FINANCES.

It is true that this minister had many friends in his disgrace, and that they persevered until his judgment. It is true that the chancellor who presided over this judgment treated this illustrious captive with too much harshness. But it was not Michel le Tellier, as was printed in some of the editions of the Siècle de Louis XIV The Century of Louis XIV; it was Pierre Seguier. This inadvertence of having taken one for the other is a fault that must be corrected.

What is very remarkable is that no one knows where this famous superintendent died: not that it matters to know, for as his death did not cause the slightest event, it is in the rank of all indifferent things; but this fact proves to what point...