Born the son of a wealthy shipowner and royal administrator, Fouquet was a supporter of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin and of the royal government during the turmoil of the Fronde (1648–53). He purchased the post of procureur général to the Parlement of Paris in 1650, and in 1653 he was appointed surintendant des finances. To aid Mazarin, who in return upheld him, Fouquet lent considerable sums to the treasury, making himself, in effect, banker to the King; his numerous financial operations, which he conducted in an irregular way (though not contrary to the usage of the times), made him extremely rich.

After Mazarin's death (March 1661), Jean-Baptiste Colbert (Colbert, Jean-Baptiste), Mazarin's personal intendant and closest confidant, sought to succeed Fouquet as finance minister by destroying his reputation with the King. Colbert revealed irregularities in Fouquet's accounts and denounced the financial operations by which he had enriched himself. Fouquet was arrested in September 1661, and his trial, which lasted three years, excited great public interest. Colbert suppressed the papers that would have proved Mazarin's personal responsibility for many of the financial transactions in question, but Fouquet defended himself cleverly, and public opinion turned in his favour. On Dec. 20, 1664, he was condemned to banishment, but Louis XIV “commuted” the sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet was taken to the fortress of Pignerol, where he died just before a measure of clemency could be issued.