However, Louis XIV intervened, exercising his prerogative to overrule the judges and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. This was the only time in French history a Monarch used his pardoning power to worsen the sentence. Fouquet was then incarcerated in Pignerol, where he died on March 23, 1680.

Nicolas Fouquet was the powerful Superintendent of Finances under King Louis XIV, whose dramatic fall from grace became one of the most famous scandals in French history. After throwing a legendary, opulent party at his magnificent estate, Vaux-le-Vicomte, in 1661, he inadvertently fueled the King's jealousy and suspicion of embezzlement. Just weeks later, he was arrested by the famous musketeer D'Artagnan. Following a controversial three-year trial, the judges originally sentenced him to banishment. However, the King, wanting a harsher punishment to assert his absolute authority, personally intervened and changed the sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet spent the remaining 15 years of his life in total isolation at the remote alpine fortress of Pignerol, where he died in 1680. His downfall served as a stark warning to other officials and paved the way for Jean-Baptiste Colbert to take control of France's finances. Some historians even speculate that Fouquet was the real identity behind the legendary "Man in the Iron Mask," though most dismiss this as myth.