The high-roofed château was rich in luxury and elegancy. The massive construction project allowed for entire villages to be razed, involving 18,000 workers. The architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, as well as the landscape architect André Le Nôtre were recruited at an exuberant cost. The château and its overall attention was so impressive that King Louis XIV grew extremely jealous over Fouquet’s new home and had him arrested, on a false embezzlement charge, shortly after the opening celebration of the château. Later, Voltaire took note of this famous incident and said, “On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody.” Louis XIV afterwards hired Fouquet’s designers for his own palace at Versailles.

King Louis XIV seized and purchased 120 tapestries, the statues, all the orange trees and more. Madame Fouquet, who was exiled, was forced to wait ten years before recovering her property and move in with her oldest son. During those ten years, the château became a refuge for French writers, artists and sculptors. Madame Fouquet’s husband and son died around 1680, and in 1705 she put Vaux-le-Vicomte up for sale.

Maréchal de Villars, who was a Duke and French Peer, as well as a military leader, became the new owner of Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. In 1764, his son sold the estate to the Duke of Praslin, whose family was to own the property for over hundred years. However, in 1875, after thirty years of the property’s neglect it was sold in a public auction, with the château empty and its gardens overgrown. Alfred Sommier bought the château and restored the property. Today, Patrice and Cristina de Vogüé, Sommier’s descendents, continue to preserve Vaux-le-Vicomte.

The château is partially surrounded by a moat, set back from the road behind iron-railed fencing and with cobble road which leads to the entrance. The castle adorns the ceiling of du Roi (Royal Bedchamber), with its décor depicting 'Time Bearing Truth Heavenward' framed by stuccowork by sculptors André Legendre and François Girardon. However, the greatest work of the painter-decorator Le Brun on the château is the ceiling in the des Muses (Hall of Muses), an allegorical composition painted in magnificent colors. The ground floor of the château displays the impressive oval-shaped Salon (Great Hall), with its sixteen caryatid pillars symbolising the months and seasons. The state salons showcase grand state beds, Mazarin desks, and Baroque marble busts, which replace the original pieces that Louis XIV stole for his palace at Versailles. In the château’s basement, there are rotating exhibits and wax figures illustrating the history.

The gardens of Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte epitomise the elegancy of Baroque gardens. Designed by Andre le Nôtre and Louis II le Vau, the gardens are perfectly proportioned on a central axis upon recommendation of Andre Mollet. This axis passes through parterres, over water basins and into forests. Many statues once adorned the gardens, but Louis XIV removed these shortly after Fouquet’s arrest. The gardens fell into ruins but after 1875 they were restored by Henri and Achille Duchêne.

Today, the Association des Amis de Vaux-le-Vicomte, established in 1903, comprises more the 900 members who maintain Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte.