Jacques Cœur

Jacques Cœur's motto, "To the brave hearts nothing is impossible" (à vaillans cœurs riens impossible), in the Bourges palace's chapel. The word cœurs is displayed ideogrammatically

Jacques Cœur (; ; – 25 November 1456) was a French government official and state-sponsored merchant whose personal fortune became legendary and led to his eventual disgrace. He initiated regular trade routes between France and the Levant. His memory retains iconic status in Bourges, where he built a palatial house that is preserved to this day.

Family and early life

He was born in Bourges, the city where his father, Pierre Cœur, was a rich merchant. Jacques is first heard of around 1418, when he married Macée de Léodepart, daughter of Lambert de Léodepart, an influential citizen, provost of Bourges and a former valet of John, Duke of Berry.

About 1429 he formed a commercial partnership with two brothers named Godard; and in 1432 he was at Damascus, buying and bartering, and transporting the wares of the Levant—gall-nuts, wools and silks, mohair, brocades and carpets—to the interior of France by way of Narbonne. In the same year he established himself at Montpellier, and there began the gigantic operations which have made him illustrious among financiers. While specific details are lacking, it is certain that in a few years he placed his country in a position to contend fairly well with the great trading republics of Italy, and acquired such a reputation as to be able, despite being a common merchant, to render material assistance to the knights of Rhodes and to Venice itself. The results were most important; concessions were obtained which greatly improved the position of the French consuls in the Levant, and that influence in the East was thereby founded which, though often interrupted, was for several centuries a chief commercial glory for France. In the same year, Cœur assisted in an embassy to Amadeus VIII, former Duke of Savoy, who had been chosen Pope as Felix V by the council of Basel and in 1448 he represented the French king at the court of Pope Nicholas V where he was able to arrange an agreement between Nicholas and Amadeus, and so end the papal schism. Nicholas treated him with the utmost distinction, lodged him in the papal palace, and gave him special licence to traffic with the infidels. From about this time he made advances to Charles to carry on his wars and in 1449, after fighting at the King's side throughout the campaign, he entered Rouen in Charles' triumphal procession. He also built a sacristy and a family burial chapel in Bourges Cathedral. His brother Nicolas Cœur was made Bishop of Luçon, his sister married Jean Bochetel, the King's secretary, his daughter married the son of the Viscount of Bourges, and his son Jean Cœur became Archbishop of Bourges.

Downfall Cœur's huge monopoly also caused his ruin. Dealing in everything (money and arms, furs and jewels, brocades and wool), and acting as a broker, banker, and farmer, he had absorbed much of the trade of the country, and merchants complained they could make no profit because of him. He had lent money to needy courtiers, to members of the royal family, and to the King himself, and his debtors, jealous of his wealth, were eager for a chance to cause his downfall. Other ancient houses are known as maison de Jacques Cœur, in Pézenas, Sancerre, and L'Arbresle.

During the Second French Empire, Jacques Cœur was celebrated as a precursor of the policy of economic expansion promoted by Napoleon III. He was portrayed by Élias Robert as one of a series of statues of illustrious Frenchmen in Napoleon III's Louvre expansion. Another public statue of Jacques Cœur, by sculptor Auguste Préault, was erected in 1879 in Bourges in front of the entrance to his palace.

He was portrayed on a French banknote, the designed at the end of the Third Republic, in use under Vichy France and until June 1945.

Streets and squares named after Jacques Cœur exist in numerous French towns and cities, including Bourges, Montpellier, and Paris. Bourges honored its native son in multiple instances, e.g. the (Cœur High School) and the Théâtre Jacques Cœur (Cœur Theater). In Montpellier, Jacques Cœur is associated with the development of the local port of Lattes. Several projects were named after him in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as the city expanded towards the sea along the river Lez. These include a marketplace in the Antigone neighborhood along the Lez; an artificial lake, the Bassin Jacques Cœur in the city's new district; and a theater in Lattes.

The is a scenic route that links together a number of sights and castles near Bourges, many of which however have no historical associations with Jacques Cœur.

Assessment

In a 1997 biography, French historian revises the established view in French historiography, according to which Jacques Cœur exhibited outstanding skills and success as a merchant. He notes that there is no evidence that Cœur's ventures, e.g. in mining near Lyon, were particularly profitable, and that the fleet he established for Levantine commerce was modest in size (never more than four galleys) compared with those of prominent Italian or Catalan merchants. Instead, Heers suggests that Cœur's success was overwhelmingly due to his position at the royal court, and that his riches came from leveraging his privileged access to state resources. Thus, Heers implies that, rather than a brilliant merchant, Cœur is best viewed as a skilled technocrat and a predecessor to the likes of Nicolas Fouquet or Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

Cultural references

François Villon, in his poem Épitaphe, refers to Cœur's fabled wealth: De pauvreté me guermantant, Souventes fois me dit le cœur : "Homme, ne te doulouse tant Et ne démène tel douleur: Si tu n'as tant qu'eut Jacques Cœur, Mieux vaux vivre sous gros bureau Pauvre, qu'avoir été seigneur Et pourrir sous riche tombeau."

To ease my poverty, my heart sometimes says to me: "Don't fret so and go crazy with pain: If you haven't as much as Jacques Cœur, it's better to live in your coarse burrel, poor, than to have been lord and rot in your rich tomb."

Jacques Cœur appears in Fulcanelli's Mystère des Cathédrales (1926) where the "master alchemist" speculates that Cœur was a successful alchemist or associated with alchemists and that he was a silversmith in the literal sense, i.e. that he could transmute base metals into small quantities of silver.

Jacques Cœur (referred to simply as “Monsieur Jacques”) appears in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita as the first guest at Woland's grand ball. He was the subject of a novel by Thomas Costain, Canadien-American Journalist/Historical Fiction Writer called "The Moneyman" in 1947. He is the titular protagonist of Le Grand Cœur, a 2012 novel by Jean-Christophe Rufin who was also born in Bourges.