Owing to the loss of Coeur's personal papers in the confusion incident to his trial, the name of his architect is unknown. From the general style and especially on account of certain details of ornamentation it is possible that he was Jean Gaussel, the architect who built the façade of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois at Paris; but this is merely a surmise. As a site for this house Coeur had bought a domain, known as the _Fief de la Chaussée_, which bordered upon the ancient rampart of Bourges, and included two of the original towers of that rampart. These two towers he restored and heightened, and they served as a beginning for the new construction and were incorporated with it. The general plan of the whole is an irregular pentagon--a central court surrounded by unsymmetrical groups of buildings, according to the disposition of almost all mediæval civil and military buildings. It is clear that the architect sacrificed every consideration of symmetry to the exigencies of usefulness and convenience; but the resulting irregularity is quite in harmony with the Gothic style, and conduces not a little to the picturesqueness of the whole. [Illustration: PLATE LV HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR: COURTYARD] The façade of the house (Plate LI.) faces a small square in which stands a modern statue of Jacques Coeur. The main feature of this façade is a central pavilion (Plate LII.) which contains the main portal of the house comprising two entrances, the larger for horsemen and guests, the smaller for tradesmen and servants. Above the portal is a niche sheltered by a carved canopy, wherein an equestrian statue of Charles VII. originally stood. The niche is flanked by two false windows, and out of each leans a stone figure, one representing a man-servant, the other a maid-servant, both dressed in the costumes of the time, who peer out into the street as if to watch for the return of their lord. On the left of the pavilion rises a beautifully elaborated prism-shaped tower, within which winds a spiral staircase leading to a chapel. This chapel occupies nearly the whole of the first story of the front, and a great window that lights it opens above the entrance. [Illustration: GOTHIC CARVED WOODWORK FIFTEENTH CENTURY _Bavarian National Museum: Munich_] The coat of arms of Jacques Coeur--three black cockle-shells and three crimson hearts, the latter in punning allusion to his name, with his motto "_A vaillans coeurs rien impossible_," the word "_coeurs_" being represented by two hearts--is frequently repeated in the carvings of the façade. Indeed everywhere throughout the building we find these emblems,--in the windows, in all the carvings, above the mantlepieces, even on the tiles of the roof, and the bell of the chapel; and the nail-heads of the door-fastenings are shaped like hearts.