Merchant, Million-
Naire, Banker, Ship-Owner, Royal Favorite, And Minister
Of Finance, Explorer Of The East And Monopolist Of The
Glittering trade between that quarter of the globe and
his own, great capitalist who had anticipated the
brilliant operations of
The present time, he expiated
his prosperity by poverty, imprisonment, and torture.
The obscure points in his career have been elucidated
by M. Clement, who has drawn, moreover, a very vivid
picture of the corrupt and exhausted state of France
during the middle of the fifteenth century. He has
shown that the spoliation of the great merchant was a
deliberately calculated act, and that the king sacrificed
him without scruple or shame to the avidity of a sin-
gularly villanous set of courtiers. The whole story is
an extraordinary picture of high-handed rapacity, -
the crudest possible assertion of the right of the stronger.
The victim was stripped of his property, but escaped
with his life, made his way out of France, and, betak-
ing himself to Italy, offered his services to the Pope.
It is proof of the consideration that he enjoyed in
Europe, and of the variety of his accomplishments,
that Calixtus III. should have appointed him to take
command of a fleet which his Holiness was fitting out
against the Turks. Jacques Coeur, however, was not
destined to lead it to victory. He died shortly after
the expedition had started, in the island of Chios, in
1456. The house of Bourges, his native place, testifies
in some degree to his wealth and splendor, though it
has in parts that want of space which is striking in
many of the buildings of the Middle Ages.
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