Marie-Madeleine de Castille

Parents. Maternal descendant of Pierre Leclerc du Vivier (before 1524 – 1598), brother of Claude II Le Clerc de Pulligny — Pierre being the father of her maternal grandmother (per Guy de Rambaud).

Spouse. Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV.

Wife of Nicolas Fouquet (1615 – 1680), Superintendent of Finances of France under Louis XIV, builder of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte and one of the most powerful and dramatic figures of seventeenth-century French political life.

Marie-Madeleine de Castille (c. 1633 – 1716) was the second wife of the celebrated statesman Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances under King Louis XIV. She brought an enormous dowry into the marriage and belonged to the influential Castille-Villemareuil family, whose rise mirrored that of many administrative noble families of seventeenth-century France.

Through her maternal ancestry, Marie-Madeleine descended from the Le Clerc du Vivier branch. The Guy de Rambaud research records that Pierre Leclerc du Vivier — brother of Claude II Le Clerc de Pulligny — was the father of the maternal grandmother of Marie-Madeleine de Castille. Her marriage to Fouquet therefore placed Le Clerc blood within the immediate family circle of one of the most powerful ministers of Louis XIV's reign.

Following the dramatic downfall and lifetime imprisonment of Nicolas Fouquet in 1661, Marie-Madeleine devoted herself with extraordinary tenacity to preserving the family's fortunes, raising their children, and defending her husband's memory and estate. Her descendants subsequently married into some of the leading aristocratic houses of France.

Marie-Madeleine's lifetime spans the high age of the personal reign of Louis XIV. She is among the most historically prominent figures connected to the wider Le Clerc family by blood — her name appears in every serious account of the Fouquet affair and the politics of seventeenth-century France.

Pedigree: Mengin Le Clerc → Claude Le Clerc de Pulligny (1485 – 1562) → Pierre Leclerc du Vivier (1530 – 1598) → his daughters of the Le Clerc du Vivier line → maternal grandmother of Marie-Madeleine de Castille → Marie-Madeleine de Castille (c. 1633 – 1716) → marriage to Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV.

This is one of the strongest social connections on the entire tree: it places the Le Clerc family within the ancestry of the wife of the most famous finance minister in seventeenth-century France.

Through Marie-Madeleine, the Le Clerc du Vivier branch is linked to the Fouquet family and to the long aristocratic descent that flowed from the union of one of Louis XIV's greatest ministers with a daughter of the Castille-Villemareuil house.