Palais Jacques-Cœur, Gothic private mansion in Bourges, France

Palais Jacques-Cœur is a Gothic private residence in Bourges arranged around an interior courtyard with four distinct wings. Each room features intricate stone carvings, and fireplaces scattered throughout the building showcase the craftsmanship of medieval stonemasons.

Jacques Cœur bought the fief de la Chaussée in 1443 for 1,200 gold écus and built the hôtel for over 100,000 écus, completed in 1453 while he was imprisoned. Arrested in 1451, he stayed there only eight nights; Charles VII confiscated it, then returned it to Cœur's sons in 1457. In 1679 it passed to Colbert, who gave it to Bourges in 1682; from 1820 it housed the cour d'appel, whose alterations prompted Prosper Mérimée to list it in 1840.

The name "palais" comes from the building's use as Bourges' courthouse from 1820, when the court of appeal and tribunal moved in. Visitors can still see the carved relief panel above a ground-floor doorway and the medallions and tracery between the windows of the octagonal turret. The palace is run and opened to visitors by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

The palace stands at 10 bis rue Jacques-Cœur, on the slope between Bourges's upper and lower town; the lower rue des Arènes follows the old Gallo-Roman wall of Avaricum. Visitors enter from the street side and pass into the cobbled courtyard, where the carved portal and the octagonal turret can be seen up close. The building is managed and opened to visitors by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

Jacques Cœur spent only eight nights in the palace he built. In 1451 Charles VII had him arrested and seized the house with all its furniture; Cœur escaped and died in exile on Chios in 1456. The king returned the property to Cœur's sons in 1457.