The Law: Never Outshine Your Master

THE LAW: NEVER OUTSHINE YOUR MASTER

“Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite— inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.”

-- Robert Greene

TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW:

Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister in the first years of his reign, was a generous man who loved lavish parties, pretty women, and poetry. He also loved money, for he led an extravagant lifestyle. Fouquet was clever and very much indispensable to the king, so when the prime minister, Jules Mazarin, died, in 1661, the finance minister expected to be named the successor. Instead, the king decided to abolish the position. This and other signs made Fouquet suspect that he was falling out of favor, and so he decided to ingratiate himself with the king by staging the most spectacular party the world had ever seen. 

The party’s ostensible purpose would be to commemorate the completion of Fouquet’s château, Vaux-le-Vicomte, but its real function was to pay tribute to the king, the guest of honor. The most brilliant nobility of Europe and some of the greatest minds of the time— La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Sévigné attended the party. Molière wrote a play for the occasion, in which he himself was to perform at the evening’s conclusion.

The party began with a lavish seven-course dinner, featuring foods from the Orient never before tasted in France, as well as new dishes created especially for the night. The meal was accompanied with music commissioned by Fouquet to honor the king. After dinner there was a promenade through the château’s gardens. The grounds and fountains of Vaux-le-Vicomte were to be the inspiration for Versailles. Fouquet personally accompanied the young king through the geometrically aligned arrangements of shrubbery and flowerbeds. 

Arriving at the gardens’ canals, they witnessed a fireworks display, which was followed by the performance of Molière’s play. The party ran well into the night and everyone agreed it was the most amazing affair they had ever attended. The next day, Fouquet was arrested by the king’s head musketeer, D’Artagnan. Three months later he went on trial for stealing from the country’s treasury. (Actually, most of the stealing he was accused of he had done on the king’s behalf and with the king’s permission.)

Fouquet was found guilty and sent to the most isolated prison in France, high in the Pyrenees Mountains, where he spent the last twenty years of his life in solitary confinement.

INTERPRETATION:

Louis XIV, the Sun King, was a proud and arrogant man who wanted to be the center of attention at all times; he could not countenance being outdone in lavishness by anyone, and certainly not his finance minister. To succeed Fouquet, Louis chose Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a man famous for his parsimony and for giving the dullest parties in Paris. Colbert made sure that any money liberated from the treasury went straight into Louis’s hands. With the money, Louis built a palace even more magnificent than Fouquet’s— the glorious palace of Versailles. He used the same architects, decorators, and garden designer. And at Versailles, Louis hosted parties even more extravagant than the one that cost Fouquet his freedom.

The evening of the party, as Fouquet presented spectacle on spectacle to Louis, each more magnificent than the one before, he imagined the affair as demonstrating his loyalty and devotion to the king. Not only did he think the party would put him back in the king’s favor, he thought it would show his good taste, his connections, and his popularity, making him indispensable to the king and demonstrating that he would make an excellent prime minister. Instead, however, each new spectacle, each appreciative smile bestowed by the guests on Fouquet, made it seem to Louis that his own friends and subjects were more charmed by the finance minister than by the king himself, and that Fouquet was actually flaunting his wealth and power.

Rather than flattering Louis XIV, Fouquet’s elaborate party offended the king’s vanity. Louis would not admit this to anyone, of course— instead, he found a convenient excuse to rid himself of a man who had inadvertently made him feel insecure. Such is the fate, in some form or other, of all those who unbalance the master’s sense of self, poke holes in his vanity, or make him doubt his pre-eminence.

When the evening began, Fouquet was at the top of the world.

By the time it had ended, he was at the bottom.

--Voltaire, 1694-1778

Greene, R. (2000). The 48 Laws of Power. Penguin Group.

In light of Clint Eastwood’s appearance — who, unlike Obama, was not invisible at the convention, let’s clear up some facts  and then -- just for fun – ask, “Did Eastwood help or hurt Mitt Romney, the intended superstar of the evening?”

Eastwood mistakenly said that 23 million Americans are “unemployed.” Actually, the figure is a little more than half that — 12.8 million in July, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Eastwood didn’t phrase things as artfully as most other convention speakers. The often-used 23 million figure also includes 8.2 million who are employed in part-time jobs but say they are seeking full-time work, the so-called “under-employed.” And it also includes another 2.5 million who say they would like a job and would take one, but haven’t looked for one in the last four weeks.

We hate to nit-pick one of our favorite actor/directors, who is not all that used to the ways politicians inflate numbers without actually saying something false. (He could have said 23 million who “need work” or “are suffering from lack of jobs” and not been technically wrong.)

But then, Eastwood was mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., and so he knows something of politics. And other film stars have gone on to run for even higher office. To which we say: Go ahead, make our day.

-- Robert Farley, with Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Ben Finley and Brooks Jackson

Did Eastwood help or hurt Mitt Romney, the intended superstar of the evening? If so, how? If not, why?

Thoughts?