Fouquet rescues Louis from the Bastille cell, weeping, embracing him — and Dumas notes the fatal thing Fouquet misses: “Il ne sentit pas que l’orgueil du roi ne lui pardonnerait jamais d’avoir été témoin de tant de faiblesse.” Saving a proud man at his lowest doesn't earn gratitude; it creates a creditor the debtor must destroy. Louis's ruin of Fouquet afterward isn't ingratitude as an accident — it's ingratitude as a requirement.

— In our words · Source: The Man in the Iron Mask (Alexandre Dumas)