2 days ago
US couple face trial in France over gold looted from shipwreck
When the French trading ship Le Prince de Conty sank in thick fog off the coast of Brittany in 1746, it was said to have been cursed.
Nearly three centuries later, the legacy of the doomed vessel has brought misfortune to an elderly couple across the Atlantic in Florida.
Gay Courter, an 80-year-old author, and her husband, Philip, 82, face trial in France this autumn over allegations that they illegally sold gold bars which were plundered from the wreck of the French East India Company ship.
They deny wrongdoing, saying the gold was given to them by a French couple whom they had befriended, and they did not know it was stolen.
Le Prince de Conty went down in a storm after an ill-fated voyage back to France from China, during which some of its crew died of scurvy and others were killed by English pirates.
