Stories about Famous Precious Stones Part 7

It has been thought advisable to give in detail the story of de Sanci's valet and the diamond because the adventure is usually attributed to the diamond which forms the subject of this article. Upon careful examination it has appeared to us probable that it really happened to the diamond bought from Dom Antonio and that this diamond was a distinct stone from the Sanci proper. Both gems however seem to have had the same fortunes and their histories for a century and a half run in parallel lines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SANCI: TOP AND SIDE VIEWS.]

De Sanci, whose extravagance was unbounded, gradually became embarra.s.sed and from time to time no doubt disposed of his gems in order to raise money. The date of the purchase of the Sanci is fixed about 1595, when Elizabeth who was inordinately fond of jewels added it to the Crown of England. In 1605, Sully received an order from Henry IV. to buy up all the jewels of Monsieur de Sanci, whose affairs had come to a crisis.

Neither the Sanci nor the Portuguese diamond were among these valuables thus bought in for Henry.

In the reign of James I. of England there appears amongst his Majesty's personal jewels one of particular note called the "Portugal" whose name does not appear in previous inventories of the English jewels, and this we are inclined to believe was the diamond which de Sanci purchased from Dom Antonio, and which had so many adventures. In the absence of direct proof however this identification should be accepted only provisionally.

Shortly after his accession James caused a number of jewels to be reset, and one ornament, known as the "Mirror of Great Britain," was considered to be the master-piece.

It is thus described in the official inventory of 1605:

"A greate and riche jewell of golde, called the Myrror of Greate Brytagne, contayninge one verie fayre table diamonde, one verie fayre table rubye, twoe other lardge dyamondes cut lozengewyse, the one of them called the stone of the letter H of Scotlande garnyshed wyth small dyamondes, twoe rounde perles fixed, and one fayre dyamonde cutt in fawcettes bought of Sancey."

That this was the diamond subsequently known as the Sanci there can be no doubt. The description "cut in facets" almost establishes the fact without the mention of the name of its recent owner.

The diamond called the "Stone of the letter H" belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and was greatly valued by her. It was a present from Henry VIII. to his sister Margaret on her marriage with James IV. of Scotland.

In her will the Queen of Scots bequeaths it to the Crown, declaring that it should belong to the Queen's successors, but should not be alienated.

When in 1623 Charles, the Prince of Wales, went on his love-trip to Madrid along with Buckingham to woo the Infanta, he had an enormous amount of jewels sent out to him in order to make friends for himself at court. As was already mentioned in the paper about the Pelegrina, these magnificent gifts were valued at no less a figure than one and a half millions of dollars. Buckingham, who did not lack for audacity, had the impudence to write to King James asking for the "Portugal" itself; but the over-indulgent monarch, though he scarcely ever refused anything to his beloved favorite, did not comply with this request. The Spanish marriage fell through, and Charles and Buckingham returned to England.

A couple of years afterwards, Charles being King, the stately Duke was sent to Paris to bring back the king's bride, Henrietta. On this occasion Buckingham seems to have exceeded himself in splendor. He was provided, says Madame de Motteville, with all the diamonds of the Crown and used them to deck himself. Possibly this may be merely an expression to indicate the profusion of Buckingham's jewels, and diamonds should not be read literally. Be this as it may, it is a fact that the Duke appeared at a ball at the Louvre in a suit of uncut white velvet, sewn all over with diamonds. These diamonds moreover, were sewn on very loosely, so that whenever the wearer pa.s.sed a group of ladies he particularly wished to honor, he shook himself, and a few of the diamonds fell off. This senseless extravagance was resorted to in rivalry of the Duke of Chevreuse, the most profuse of the French n.o.bles, who at the ceremony of the betrothal had appeared in a suit embroidered with pearls and diamonds, it being contrary to a sumptuary law to embroider with gold or silver.

Charles did not long enjoy the tranquil possession of his diamonds. By the time he and Henrietta had ceased to quarrel he and his Parliament had begun to do so. The Queen pledged a large number of the crown jewels in Holland in order to raise funds for her husband, but these consisted mostly of pearls and did not include either the Sanci or the Portugal whose connection with the Crown of England was not yet to be severed.

In 1669 the court jeweler of France, Robert de Berquen, whose writings have already been alluded to, says:

"The present Queen of England has the diamond which the late Monsieur de Sanci brought back from the Levant. It is almond-shaped, cut in facets on both sides, perfectly white and clean, and it weighs fifty-four carats."

Berquen was likely to be well-informed both from his profession and from his position. His book is highly interesting and contains some very quaint pa.s.sages. Thus, when writing of diamonds he a.s.sumes a critical att.i.tude in surveying past writers and their deductions, and rejects with scorn and as utterly unworthy of belief the statement that a lady, having two large diamonds, put them away in a box and found, on again examining the box, that they had produced several young ones.

The expression "the present Queen of England" has considerably puzzled many writers, since at that date there were two queens of England, namely the dowager Henrietta and the consort of Charles II., Catherine of Braganza. It seems most probable that the expression refers to the latter, for some years previous to the Restoration we find Henrietta disposing of the diamond to the Earl of Worcester. The following letter is in her hand:

"We Henrietta Moria of Bourbon, Queen of Great Britain, have by command of our much honored lord and master the King caused to be handed to our dear and well-beloved cousin Edward Somerset, Count and Earl of Worcester, a ruby necklace containing ten large rubies, and one hundred and sixty pearls set and strung together in gold.

Among the said rubies are also two large diamonds called the 'Sanci' and the 'Portugal,'" etc.

After the Restoration Charles II. made strenuous endeavors to collect the scattered jewels of his Crown. How or when he recovered the Sanci and the Portugal we cannot now tell. It would be very like the devoted Worcester who ruined himself for the Stuarts to have given them back to Charles without stipulation, and it would be very like a Stuart to have accepted them and never to have paid for them. Worcester died in 1677 and two years later, as we have seen, the Sanci was in the hands of the "present Queen of England."

Along with the Crown, the Sanci descended to James II., and no doubt figured at the extraordinarily fine coronation which inaugurated his disastrous reign. The Queen had a million's worth of jewels on her gown alone, and "shone like an angel," says a contemporary, who was so dazzled by her splendor that he could scarcely look at her. When James lost his crown he managed to keep hold of the Sanci and also, presumably, of the Portugal. Indeed the jewels of England for a long time served to keep the famished court of the Stuarts around James and his son. Gradually they were sold to meet the exigencies of the various Pretenders till nothing of value was left for the last Stuart, the Cardinal of York, to bequeath to the English King. Among the first to go was the Sanci which James II. sold to Louis XIV. for twenty-five thousand pounds about the year 1695.

From this date for one hundred years the Sanci ranked third among the French jewels, being valued at one million of francs ($200,000). The first and second on the list were respectively the Regent, valued at twelve millions, and the Blue, at three millions.

At the coronation of Louis XV. in 1723, the Sanci bore a distinguished part.

The little King, aged thirteen years and a half, was crowned at Rheims with all the splendor and tediousness of ceremonial for which the French court had become renowned. Louis, previous to the imposition of the Crown, was dressed in a long petticoat garment of silver brocade which reached to his shoes, also of silver. On his head he wore a black velvet cap surmounted on one side by a stately plume of white ostrich feathers crested with black heron's feathers. This nodding head-dress was confined at the base by an aigrette of diamonds, among which the Sanci was chief.

At the coronation of Louis XVI. in 1775, the Sanci had the honor of surmounting the royal Crown in a fleur-de-lis, which was united to the rest of the diadem by eight gold branches. Just beneath the Sanci blazed the royal Regent with the Portugal, the Sanci's old companion and fellow diamond. Pity that a head once so gorgeously bonneted should roll in the b.l.o.o.d.y sawdust of the guillotine!

The Sanci shared the fate of the Regent in being stolen in 1792, but it did not share its luck in being found again. As early as February in that eventful year rumors began to circulate of the intention of the royalists to lay violent hands upon the Crown Jewels, but the commissioners ordered to make the inventory for the National a.s.sembly declared such rumors devoid of truth. The fact remains however that all the diamonds were stolen, and all, except the Regent, disappeared completely for many years.

In 1828 the Sanci comes to light once more. A respectable French merchant sold it in that year to Prince Demidoff, Grand Huntsman to the Czar, for a large sum, apparently one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. One would like to know where the above respectable merchant got the diamond, but unfortunately he seems not to have furnished any history with it--perhaps because it might have made him appear less respectable.

Four years later the Sanci went to law. Prince Demidoff, it seems, agreed to sell it to a Monsieur Levrat, director of Forges and Mines in the Grisons, for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and Monsieur Levrat agreed to pay the price. Afterwards he contended that the diamond had been spoiled by being re-cut, which was very likely, and that it was worth only twenty-five thousand dollars. To this remarkable reduction in price Prince Demidoff seems to have a.s.sented, and he delivered over the stone to Monsieur Levrat who was to pay by instalments. Instead of paying, he p.a.w.ned the stone, and the defrauded Prince sued him, won his case, and got back the diamond. This was all the more lucky for the Demidoffs, since in 1865 they were able to sell it for one hundred thousand dollars.

While in the hands of Prince Demidoff the Sanci is reported to have had some strange adventures of which the following is an example:

It was in the shawl of the Princess one day, when, finding it hot, she handed the shawl to a friend to carry for her. The friend was a very absent-minded scientific personage; he put the Sanci pin into his waistcoat pocket for safety and forgot all about it when returning the shawl to the Princess. She forgot the pin also (a likely incident this).

Next day the Sanci was missing. Consternation! Scientific friend hurriedly interviewed. He remembered the incident. Where was the waistcoat? Gone to the wash (of course). O, horror! Washerwoman frantically sought. Where was the waistcoat?--in the tub? Was there anything found in the pocket? Yes; a gla.s.s pin. Where was it? Had given it to her little boy to play with (of course). Where was the boy?

Playing in the gutter! Despair! The little fable ends nicely, as a little fable should, and there is joy all around.

The person who gave the Demidoffs one hundred thousand dollars for the Sanci was Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy the great Bombay merchant and millionaire. And thus after many wanderings the Sanci at length returned to the Orient whence, to judge from its cutting, it had originally come.

However its stay in India was but brief. It came back to Paris for the Exhibition of 1867, where it found itself once more beneath the same roof as the Regent. It was nevertheless not in the same show-case as that imperial exhibit, for it belonged to Messrs. Bapst who were willing to sell it for the sum of one million of francs, the exact amount at which it had been valued previous to the Revolution.

Some one rich enough to buy it and fond enough of diamonds to spend such a sum on a jewel was found again in India. This time it was a Prince.

The Maharajah of Puttiala became its owner. When on the first of January, 1876, the Prince of Wales held a Grand Chapter of the Star of India at Calcutta, he beheld, in the turban of one of the Rajahs, the diamond of his ancestors. The Maharajah, says the _London Times_ correspondent, wore five hundred thousand dollars worth of the Empress Eugenie's diamonds on his white turban, and the Great Sanci as pendant.

These were supplemented by emeralds, pearls and rubies on his neck and breast.

Of all the diamonds whose history we have followed this one certainly carries off the palm for the variety of its adventures. The Koh-i-Nur is an older stone and has belonged to many kings, but the different countries in Asia are, to our minds at least, much less clearly distinguished from one another than our European states. For a diamond to pa.s.s from the hands of an Afghan chief to a Persian Shah seems less of a change than for it to go from the treasure-room of the Tower of London to the Garde Meable of Paris.

Now that the Sanci has been found and is so widely known it is to be hoped that it will be kept always in view. Diamonds and heads are often unaccountably lost in the seraglios of Asiatic princes, but we must only hope that oriental potentates are now sufficiently enlightened to understand that we, of the Western World, wish to be informed of everything that happens, whether it be the fall of a dynasty, or the sale of a diamond.

IX.

THE GREAT MOGUL.

If the Sanci be the Sphinx of diamonds the Great Mogul may not inaptly be called the Meteor among them. Like those brilliant visitants in the skies, it flashes suddenly upon us in all its splendor and as suddenly disappears in total darkness leaving not a trace behind. So utterly has it vanished from our ken that some writers deny its independent existence. And this they do in the face of the minute description of the greatest diamond-merchant and expert of his century, who actually held the stone in his hand! The hard-headed practical Tavernier was not likely to have dreamed that he saw the Great Mogul, nor is it likely that a diamond-merchant of his experience could have made any gross mistake as to its weight or its character--for some go so far as to suggest that the Great Mogul was a white topaz! The fact that we now cannot find the diamond is no sufficient reason for denying its former existence.

In the account of Queen Victoria's diamond, the Koh-i-nur, we made acquaintance with the court of Delhi; to its complicated records we must return for the Great Mogul. It is scarcely needful to state this name is a fanciful one bestowed on the lost gem by European writers; Tavernier gives it no distinct name in his description.

Shah Jehan (Lord of the World) who reigned in the middle of the seventeenth century was, as we have already seen, the husband of the beautiful Nur Jehan (Light of the World) who bore him four sons and two daughters.

As the King grew older his sons grew stronger, and fearing that they would not be able to dwell together in amity at Delhi the old monarch gave distant governments to three of his sons, in order to keep the young men apart from one another, and at a safe distance from himself.

In this way he vainly hoped to escape the destiny of Indian emperors--jealousies and mutinies during his life and fratricides after his death. But his plan failed. Shah Jehan saw one son put a brother to death and he himself lived for seven years as the captive of the murderer.

A contemporary of Shah Jehan was Emir Jemla, or Mirgimola, as Tavernier calls him. He was a man of great ability and singular fortunes, being, so to speak, the Cardinal Wolsey of his king Abdullah Kutb Shah, lord of Golconda. Proud, ambitious, skillful and rich, he at length aroused the suspicions of his sovereign, as was the case with regard to Wolsey. Emir Jemla was not, however, a priest, but a soldier, and commanded the King's armies. A Persian by birth and of mean origin, he had raised himself to be general-in-chief by means of his military talents and his vast wealth. Emir Jemla sent ships into many countries, says Tavernier, and worked diamond-mines under an a.s.sumed name, so that people discoursed of nothing but of the riches of Emir Jemla. His diamonds, moreover, he counted by the sackful.

In the year 1656, being sent by the King to bring certain rebellious rajahs to reason, he left as hostages in his master's hands his wife and children, according to the usual practice among the suspicious and not over-faithful Asiatics. While he was absent upon this expedition the King's mind was poisoned against the powerful favorite by the courtiers jealous of his success. Having only daughters, the King was made to believe that Emir Jemla intended to raise his own son to the throne, and the unruly, ill-mannered behavior of this son lent color to the tale.

The King took fright at the idea and laid hands upon the hostages using them sharply. The son sent word to his father, Emir Jemla, and the latter enraged at the indignity resolved to avenge himself. He invoked the aid of the imperial suzerain, Shah Jehan. Uncertain of his success at headquarters, he applied in the meantime to two of the Emperor's sons who were nearer at hand than far-off Delhi, for they were then at the head of their respective governments to the north and west of Golconda.

One of them refused Emir Jemla's offer of adding his master's dominions to the empire of Shah Jehan in return for the loan of an army, but the other accepted the proposition. The name of him who accepted was Aurungzeb, third son of Shah Jehan, and the most perfidious prince within the four corners of India.

The allied chiefs did not waste time, but arrived before Golconda so unexpectedly that Abdullah had barely time to save himself by retiring to his not far-distant hill-fortress. Indeed the King himself threw open his gates to the enemy, for Aurungzeb gave out that he came as amba.s.sador from the emperor Shah Jehan, and the King was within a hair-breadth of falling into the hands of the treacherous amba.s.sador when he received timely warning and saved himself by flight. With a courtesy which Tavernier finds pa.s.sing graceful the fugitive King sent back to his rebel va.s.sal the wife and children whom he had held as hostages. Notwithstanding their war there remained a good deal of kindly feeling between Emir Jemla and the King, his master. For example: one day his Majesty being straitly besieged in his fortress was informed by his Dutch cannonier that Emir Jemla was riding within range. "Shall I take off his head for your Highness?" asked the Dutchman. The King, very wroth, replied: "No; learn that not so lightly is esteemed the life of a prince." The cannonier, not to be balked of his artillery practice, cut in twain the body of a general who was riding not far from Emir Jemla.

On his side also Emir Jemla was anxious not to reduce the King to extremities and refused to prosecute the siege to the uttermost, which much disgusted his ally Aurungzeb. Rather he would treat with his ancient master, who gladly accepted the chance of deliverance, appealing to Shah Jehan himself against his son. The emperor was easy on his former ally, and eventually a family alliance was arranged between a daughter of King Abdullah and a son of Aurungzeb. Emir Jemla set off to Delhi to confer with Shah Jehan upon the subject.

It is an axiom of Asiatic etiquette that no one ever comes before a king without laying a gift at his feet. Emir Jemla, anxious to obtain the favor of Shah Jehan, took care not to stand before him empty-handed, but presented him with "that celebrated diamond which has been generally deemed unparalleled in size and beauty." So says Franzois Bernier, a Frenchman, physician to Aurungzeb, who lived many years in Delhi and whose familiarity with the court enabled him to speak accurately of recent occurrences.