THE BROCHURE SERIES House of Jacques Coeur: Bourges Gothic Carved Woodwork JULY, 1900 [Illustration: PLATE LI HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR: FACADE] THE BROCHURE SERIES OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION. 1900. JULY No. 7. HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR: BOURGES. The house of Jacques Coeur at Bourges is, to architect and historian alike, one of the most interesting monuments which have survived from the Middle Ages,--interesting to the architect not only for its intrinsic beauty, but from the fact that it is the most complete and important specimen which remains of all the civil buildings in France of the Gothic period, and which, because of the brief time occupied in its construction, exhibits the style of the fifteenth century in unusual purity, and interesting to the historian from its connection with Jacques Coeur, one of the most picturesque and remarkable figures in French history. That Jacques Coeur was the son of a wealthy fur merchant of Bourges, and that he was born in 1395, are the only facts of importance in his eventful career that are known, until he first makes his appearance on the historical stage, under rather disadvantageous circumstances, in 1420. The Dauphin of France, driven across the Loire by the English and their Burgundian allies, had made Bourges the seat of his government, and had appointed a certain Ravant-le-Danois master of the Bourges mint,--a post of some importance. Ravant-le-Danois had taken into partnership (for at this time the coining of public moneys was farmed out to private enterprise) Jacques Coeur, and the two, finding that the profits of the business were not so large as they had expected, presently resorted to illegitimate methods of increasing them; and Coeur appears to have been active in the process of issuing money which was considerably under the standard weight. The fraud was discovered; but the kings of France themselves had been too often guilty of tampering with the coin of the realm for the offence to carry with it any deep disgrace; and, perhaps considering the state of the royal treasury, justice considered itself satisfied with a fine equal to about $7500. Thereafter, however, Jacques Coeur appears to have cast about for a more honorable channel into which to direct his energy. Enterprising, keen-eyed, determined by some means or other to make his fortune, he naturally turned his face eastward. The trade between Europe and the Levant had never been more active than it was in the early part of the fifteenth century, in spite of the ecclesiastical restrictions laid upon it. For the Church, still dreaming of new crusades and a Christian rule in the Holy Land, censured all peaceful dealings with the infidel. But the demand for