The accusation of poisoning was so obviously groundless that it was at once abandoned; but half a dozen other charges were quickly formulated against him, amongst them those of having exported French money to the East; of having sold arms to the infidel; of having administered the king's affairs fraudulently and tyranically in Languedoc, and of having issued light money from the mint.
Cœur defended himself bravely, but he might have spared himself the trouble. His judges had already agreed upon a verdict. He was dragged from one prison to another, continually protesting his innocence, continually appealing to the Church for protection; till at last in 1453 he was brought into the torture chamber of the Castle of Tours and threatened with the rack. Weary and weak from twenty months of suspense and confinement, his heart failed him, and he agreed to admit all the charges against him except that of having poisoned Agnes Sorel.
In consideration of the pope's intercession and of Cœur's former services his life was spared; but he was condemned to pay the king $1,250,000 as restitution money, and $2,500,000 as a fine, and to be banished forever from the kingdom. On being notified of the decree, Jacques replied that he could not possibly raise the sums demanded. He himself owed money which he had borrowed for the king's affairs, and his goods were not worth so much. He was accordingly thrown again into prison, and the procurer-general proceeded to sell, by public auction, all the property of the prisoner which, after diligent search, he could find throughout the kingdom, including the house at Bourges.
Two years passed, and the sentence of banishment was not yet executed, perhaps because the fines were not yet paid. At the end of that time Cœur, by the help of one of his former clerks, contrived to escape from prison, and fled to Rome.
| PLATE LIV | HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR: CLOISTERS AND COURTYARD |
The end of his life is almost as obscure as the beginning. It is clear however, that, though now a man of over sixty, whose last five years had been years of intense suffering, Cœur was recognized by the pope, Calixtus III., as a man of ability and spirit. Constantinople had fallen, and the pope was anxious to undertake a new crusade. But the days of crusades were over; and his envoys pleaded and reasoned with the sovereigns of Christendom in vain. At length, in despair, the pope fitted out sixteen galleys himself, and in 1456 sent them to succor the Christian colonies in the Archipelago. The patriarch of Aquileia was the nominal leader, but an actual leader was required, and Calixtus offered the secondary command to none other than the French exile, Jacques Cœur. Cœur accepted the post; but his new career was a very short one.