The Man Who Outshone The Sun King

The story - straight out of Dumas - of the rise and fall of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's first finance minister and the man who 'outshone the Sun King'.

A gripping account of one of the most spectacular - and tragic - careers in French history

This is the story of the seventeenth century's most audacious aesthete brought low by its most elegant tyrant - and it is as fresh, dramatic and poignant today as it was when it first engrossed Europe nearly four hundred years ago. Charles Drazin's refined, meticulous approach is perfectly suited to his protagonist. Stylish and compelling.

Charles Drazin not only tells a great story; he has also produced a vivid and compelling account of the French court in all its treacherous complexity. A marvellous book.

Sometime late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a heavily-armoured carriage as it rumbled slowly southwards from Paris, carrying his great friend Nicolas Fouquet to internal exile and life imprisonment in the fortress of Pignerol. There he would be incarcerated in a cell next door to the Man with the Iron Mask... 
 
From a glittering zenith as the King's first minister, builder of the breathtaking chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, collector of books, patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Fouquet had fallen like Icarus. Charged with embezzlement, he was convicted and sentenced to banishment until the King intervened to change his sentence to life imprisonment. 
 
Charles Drazin's rich and riveting account brings to life the rich and hazardous world in which Foucquet lived. As a child he learned from his devout mother how to mix herbal remedies for the patients at the Hotel-Dieu and from his father, a creature of Cardinal Richelieu, the expectations of political life. Drazin tells of the young man's first adventures as a tax-collector caught up in rebellion in the Dauphiné , of the loyalty and service that he gave to Cardinal Mazarin and of the financial wizardry that somehow kept France's finances together. The cunning, charisma and charm of Fouquet enchant and beguile while they reveal the seeds of his destruction. 
 
But it is in his downfall and incarceration, which he bore with great fortitude, courage and humour, that Fouquet's strength of character and grace emerge, as he somehow survives both solitary confinement and absence of books, pen and ink. The richness and contrasts of his remarkable story are done full justice in this compelling book.

Charles Drazin was born in Hampshire in 1960. He grew up in North London and was educated at Highgate School and Oxford University, where he read Classics. He has worked for many years as a writer and editor, and also teaches at Queen Mary, University of London. His other books include In Search of the Third Man (1999), Korda: Britain’s Only Movie Mogul (2002), The Man Who Outshone the Sun King (2008) and The Faber Book of French Cinema (2011).

Sometime late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a heavily-armoured carriage as it rumbled slowly southwards from Paris, carrying his great friend Nicolas Fouquet to internal exile and life imprisonment in the fortress of Pignerol. There he would be incarcerated in a cell next door to the Man with the Iron Mask... 
 
From a glittering zenith as the King's first minister, builder of the breathtaking chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, collector of books, patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Fouquet had fallen like Icarus. Charged with embezzlement, he was convicted and sentenced to banishment until the King intervened to change his sentence to life imprisonment. 
 
Charles Drazin's riveting account brings to life the rich and hazardous world in which Foucquet lived. As a child he learned from his devout mother how to mix herbal remedies for the patients at the Hotel-Dieu and from his father, a creature of Cardinal Richelieu, the demands of political life. Drazin tells of the young man's first adventures as a tax-collector, caught up in rebellion in the Dauphiné , of the loyalty and service that he gave to Cardinal Mazarin and of the financial wizardry that somehow kept France's finances together. The cunning, charisma and charm of Fouquet enchant and beguile while they reveal the seeds of his destruction. 
 
But it is in his downfall and incarceration, which he bore with great fortitude, courage and humour, that Fouquet's strength of character and grace emerge, as he somehow survives both solitary confinement and absence of books, pen and ink. The richness and contrasts of his remarkable story are done full justice in this compelling book.

Ambition, Triumph and Treachery in the Reign of Louis XIV

Amidst the chaos and anarchy of civil war-wracked France, one man's spectacular rise and devastating fall was lost to history - until now.

This is the story of the seventeenth century's most audacious aesthete brought low by its most elegant tyrant - and it is as fresh, dramatic and poignant today as it was when it first engrossed Europe nearly four hundred years ago. Charles Drazin's refined, meticulous approach is perfectly suited to his protagonist. Stylish and compelling

Charles Drazin not only tells a great story; he has also produced a vivid and compelling account of the French court in all its treacherous complexity. A marvellous book

*In 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a heavily-armoured carriage as it rumbled slowly southwards from Paris, carrying his great friend Nicolas Foucquet to internal exile and life imprisonment in the fortress of Pignerol. There he would be incarcerated in a cell next door to the Man with the Iron Mask... 
 
*From a glittering zenith as the King's first minister, builder of the breathtaking chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, collector of books, patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Foucquet had fallen like Icarus. Charged with embezzlement, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. 
 
*Charles Drazin's riveting account brings to life the rich, hazardous and machiavellian world in which Foucquet lived. His charm, cunning and charisma enchanted and beguiled those around him, but in them lay the seeds of his destruction.

A Dot.Com Story from Concept to Catastrophe

Boo Hoo

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Such a dazzling version of the boo phenomenon that as readers turn the pages they will be rooting for the company to survive even though they know the story ends in disaster.

Boo Hoo is an engrossing account of how two childhood friends persuaded some of the world's savviest investors and fashion houses - including Bernard Arnault's LVMH and the Benetton family - to fund a sports and designer clothing company to the tune of $100m.

[his] tale captures the hype and excitement of developing what was seen by many as a ground-breaking company with state-of-the-art technology- Along the way, it tells of endless rounds of raising finance, glamorous parties, staff clashes and bitter sparring with the press.

The game would be to bring boo.com to market, when it would soon be worth more than $1 billion and make its backers rich. Can all this have happened last year? It seems more like a tale from a different aeon, but the lessons it teaches are timeless.

Reading [this] has the fascination of watching a high-speed car crash replayed in slow motion. You know what's going to happen, you can see the confident glow on the drivers' faces, but can't warn them about the curve in the road that is coming to unstick them. Schadenfreude is irresistible. And yet everyone walks away unhurt.

Ernst Malmsten: born in Sweden and knew Kajsa in kindergarten. He met her again outside a Paris nightclub in 1992. The two of them made millions by selling their first internet venture, bokus.com, to Bertelsmann (bol.com). Kajsa Leander: also born in Sweden, and 'discovered' by the famous Elite modelling agency. She modelled for two years at all the major catwalk shows, and made all the covers of the top magazines including Elle and Vogue. Erik Portanger has been staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal for 18 months and has been a journalist for over 10 years. Before working for the WSJ, he was a senior correspondent for the AP Dow Jones News Service for 5 years.

boo hoo is a gripping, insider's account of the rise and fall of this most controversial of internet startups - a global, online retailer of sports and designer clothes.

Charles Drazin

Beautifully written … Drazin maps out his family’s past with endearing passion.

A worthy endeavour – a thoughtful, engaging, humane reflection on one family’s trek through some of the most extraordinary tangles of history .

[A] fascinating piece of family history …engaging and informative.

Drazin has composed a beautiful family tribute that at the same time salutes the Royal Engineers eloquently, and thoughtfully interrogates our tragic imperial history.

A Search for Five Brothers at the Edge of Empire

‘Patsy, what are you going to be when you grow up? Well?’ 
'A Royal Engineer, Daddy. A Royal Engineer!’ 
 
Charles Drazin knew little about his mother's father – only that he had been a military surveyor who mapped great swathes of the British Empire. But when his mother was told that she was dying, it prompted recollections of her early life that she had never confided before: of the village in the west of Ireland where she had grown up, and of her father, whose death changed the life of an eight-year-old girl for ever. 
 
Soon afterwards her own death left her son to go through alone the relics of her life. They included a box of old photographs, a battered suitcase stamped with the initials of the grandfather he had never known, and the service records of Patrick’s brothers, who, like him, had all enlisted in the Royal Engineers as the nineteenth century became the twentieth. So began an extraordinary journey of discovery that took him from the age of Queen Victoria to the battlefields of the Western Front. 
 
Mapping the Past is the story of five brothers who, mapping the world, lived up to the Royal Engineers’ motto of Everywhere. It is the story of Ireland, and of the Empire from which it broke away. It is the story of conflict, war and its aftermath. And, most of all, it is the story of memory, endlessly carrying the past, for better or worse, into our present and future. It is an imaginative, intimate and powerful work of history, by a writer of rare power.

Charles Drazin

Praise for Mapping the Past

Beautifully written … Drazin maps out his family’s past with endearing passion.

A worthy endeavour – a thoughtful, engaging, humane reflection on one family’s trek through some of the most extraordinary tangles of history .

[A] fascinating piece of family history …engaging and informative.

Beautifully written … Drazin maps out his family’s past with endearing passion.

A worthy endeavour – a thoughtful, engaging, humane reflection on one family’s trek through some of the most extraordinary tangles of history .

[A] fascinating piece of family history …engaging and informative.

Beautifully written … Drazin maps out his family’s past with endearing passion.

A worthy endeavour – a thoughtful, engaging, humane reflection on one family’s trek through some of the most extraordinary tangles of history .

[A] fascinating piece of family history …engaging and informative.

Books by Charles Drazin

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