Vanel

Also known as: M. Vanel / Monsieur Vanel · Family: parliament · Role: counselor · First appears: Chapter 42

Vanel, also known as M. Vanel or Monsieur Vanel, is a counselor belonging to the parliament. In chapter 42, Colbert acts as his patron, offering to lend him fourteen hundred thousand francs to purchase Fouquet’s procureur-general post. Vanel accepts the repayment and mortgage conditions, and Colbert directs him to obtain Fouquet’s agreement; Vanel regards Fouquet as their chief, and Fouquet had once been among his friends.

At Saint-Mande in chapter 46, La Fontaine reveals Vanel as the purchaser, using Madame Vanel’s money, and brings him before Fouquet. The sale is arranged for fourteen hundred thousand livres, with payment and signature set for the following morning. Vanel is identified as the husband of Madame Vanel and, in chapter 48, as the husband of Marguerite Vanel; the appointment is then sold to him for fourteen hundred thousand francs.

In chapter 49, Vanel refuses Aramis’s offer of a million francs to give up the appointment—“Impossible,” murmured Vanel. After a draft in Colbert’s handwriting exposes the plot against Fouquet, Fouquet signs the deed, Vanel pays and attempts to leave, and Aramis grips him so tightly that he staggers when released. By chapter 56, Fouquet identifies Vanel to the king as a parliament counselor and “a particular friend of the intendant Colbert.”