Beyond the Surface: Secrets Hidden Within ‘The 48 Laws of Power’

The ends justify the means. This is the core belief behind the best-seller, The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene, the book’s author, does a fantastic job of weaving through his laws by using historical references.

These ‘accurate’ historical references, reminiscent of Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince,’ fascinated me as they portrayed the laws of power. However, while these laws are fascinating, the references seem too simplistic and reductive to be entirely trusted.

If you were a noble by birth in ancient France, you’d know better than to become a loyal subject of a monarch. But the book presents otherwise.

This disconnect prompted me to dive deeper into the actual history to verify whether the laws truly made sense. For the sake of this article, I’ll be diving into the references given for the First Law: Never Outshine the Master — particularly, the first one about the tragic tale of Nicholas Fouquet.

The First Law

To put things briefly, the first law suggests not going too far in displaying your talents, especially in front of your Master/ immediate superior. The suggestion is to help the master shine brighter to attain better heights. The author presents three cases to reinforce this law.

1. The case of Nicolas Fouquet and King Louis XIV.
2. The relationship between Galileo and the Medici Family.
3. The case of Sen no Rikyu and the Japanese daimyo, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

However, the cases are not pragmatic. In fact, I couldn’t even believe them actually to be true. As mentioned earlier, we look at the case of Nicholas Fouquet, who lost everything because of a party he threw. Was Nicolas Fouquet’s fall truly a result of outshining King Louis XIV, or was there more at play?

Nicolas Fouquet’s fête at Vaux le Vicomte

In the book, we meet Nicolas Fouquet, a loyal but overly confident guy who wants to prove that he is indispensable to Louis XIV. To do so, he hosts a grand party that is more glorious than what Louis had ever thrown. However, being an attention seeker, Louis finds this extremely irritable and sentences Fouquet to 20 years of prison, where he ultimately dies.

This portrayal seems overly simplistic, doesn’t it?

Fouquet was a Finance Minister for a chaotic country. Naturally, he’d be one of the few with the highest influence in France. Why would he act so dumb? Also, Louis XIV is a king of the same chaotic country; wouldn’t he know better than to be a self-obsessed brat? Why did this happen? Also, did Fouquet directly accept this sentence? I mean, if I were in his situation, I’d obviously have a backup plan in these volatile times, and I’m just a small-time employee, while Fouquet is a Finance Minister who started as a lowly merchant. Obviously, he’d have better plans and contingencies.

To present things concisely, I will elaborate only on three points: the situation of France during the party, the records of Fouquet and the thoughts of Louis XIV.

The state of France.

In a word, it was disastrous. When Fouquet became the Supt. of Finance (equivalent to today’s Finance minister, which the book uses), the country’s internal situation was in shambles.

The country practised antiquated revenue systems. The royal treasury had taken out too many loans and was in severe debt. The nobility had too much power, and the monarchy hadn’t yet asserted its dominance. The country was engaging in wars despite these internal issues. This was a chaotic time to be in charge of the finances. Fouquet’s role in all this is to address the financial issues and puff up the royal treasury. But was he qualified for it?

Who was Nicolas Fouquet?

Nicolas Fouquet was born into a noble and influential family. He was educated and trained for a career in public service. He earned his law degree from the University of Paris. He took measures to increase his wealth and connections and took considerable steps to achieve them. He held multiple positions in civil and military domains, earning the trust and support of many notable figures including Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV. Besides his position in finance, he also held a high position in the Parisian parliament and a high degree of control over it. He also headed the enormously wealthy and influential tax farmers, which even the king couldn’t easily challenge.

He held power. A lot of it. So why was it easy for Louis XIV to sentence him over a petty feeling?

Louis XIV’s concerns.

In the book, the author simplified Louis XIV as follows:

Louis XIV, the Sun King, was a proud and arrogant man who wanted to be the center of attention at all times;

The king’s reaction wasn’t due to his self-obsession— certainly, any king would have some degree of self-obsession, but that was not the main cause here.

The degree of power held by Fouquet was too great. Because of the situation in France, Louis first had to resolve all possible rebellions and solidify the monarchy, and second, display his dominance over the nobility. When Colbert, Fouquet’s successor, provided Louis with unflattering reports about Fouquet, it prompted the king to scrutinise his finance minister more closely. There are a few references to Louis and Colbert plotting Fouquet’s downfall a month before the fated party². The party just acted as a trigger because it reinforced many of Louis’s worries.

1. The vast power and wealth reinforced the fears of rebellion from Fouquet.
2. The behaviour and some of the reports from Colbert were justified by the extreme wealth displayed.
3. The grand feast felt like blatant ridicule with golden plates and spoons when even the royal treasury struggled.
4. The full power display of Fouquet’s connections rang alarms in Louis’s brain.

Louis made a very good move in attacking Fouquet by surprise. After the party, Fouquet firmly believed he was on Louis’s good side. But the attack wasn’t immediate. Louis waited 20 days to set his plans into motion. First, Fouquet had to lose his status in parliament so that royal persecution could be applied. Second, the reasoning must be solid so that the nobles can not raise any complaints.

Luckily for Louis, Fouquet was no saint. Fouquet did indeed have plans to instigate his supporters for rebellion, hidden behind a mirror. Combining this with the “witnesses” produced to support the misappropriation of funds sealed his fate. He was only sentenced to life imprisonment because of the connections he built.

This exploration left me with a different view. Fouquet was on the hit list before the party even started. The party just accelerated the entire downfall of Fouquet. If only he hadn’t completely displayed his power but rather shown a simpler side, or had he not been complacent after the party and made sufficient precautions, Fouquet’s story would have had a different ending. That’s where the beauty of the law displays its brilliance.

The law holds despite it not being the whole cause. Remove the party from Fouqet’s life, where he hid the power of his connections from the king and took a different approach to become the prime minister. There’s a significant chance he would have succeeded. But he might also have failed because of the unknown plans of Colbert and Louis. In this case, we might have read his story under a different law among the 48.

The other references in the book present vastly different circumstances. Each had multiple reasons and motivations. But the law can still be found in these stories. Perhaps that’s why the book remains highly regarded — it distils these complex and often unnoticed laws into simplified snippets of history. It simplifies the reader’s process of going through history to find these gems, which is also the purpose of this book in the preface.

The author’s approach might be deliberate, too, as suggested by his warning at the end of the preface:

A warning, however, to those who use the book for this purpose: It might be better to turn back. Power is endlessly seductive and deceptive in its own way.

What other examples in Mr. Greene’s book might deserve a closer examination? What are your thoughts on the relationship between history and power? Share your perspective in the comments below.

I’ll keep reading the book and dissecting each story, as each story presents a unique perspective on the beauty of the laws. But for now, I’ll leave you with these thoughts. Thanks for staying till the end. Until next time — happy reading. ✌

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