unfortunately been forced to abandon its Oriental shape. It is now set
in a brooch which the Queen wears upon all state occasions. It is kept
at Windsor, so as to be at hand when wanted, and considerable interest
in high quarters is required to get a sight of it. An exact model of it
reposes in the jewel case of the Tower, alongside of the Crown, in order
to gratify the curiosity of Her Majesty's subjects.
V.
THE FRENCH BLUE.
The diamond variously known as the "French Blue," or the "Tavernier
Blue," has had a singular destiny.
Smaller by nearly eighty carats than the Orloff, and younger by three
centuries than the Koh-i-nûr, it is in some ways as remarkable as either
of those famous stones. So far as is known, it was never the worshiped
orb of an idol, nor the hardly-less worshiped bauble of an Eastern
prince. Wars were not waged for it, nor were murders committed to obtain
its possession. Indeed, its quaint commercial _début_ into history is
somewhat tame, as is also its uneventful life of a century and a half in
the treasure-chambers of the Crown of France. In fact, were it not for
its strange color, its strange loss and its yet stranger recovery, the
French Blue would scarcely deserve a place among these "Stories about
Famous Precious Stones."
Jean Baptiste Tavernier is a name familiar to everyone who has studied
the history of precious stones. He was the son of an Antwerp geographer
settled in Paris, and early in life he evinced an ardent love of travel.
Born in 1605, he had at the age of twenty-two traveled over most of
Europe, and was acquainted with most European languages. In his own
account of his travels he speaks entertainingly of the various reasons
which at different times prompted him to journey. Having entered the
service of the Duke of Mantua as captain of a company of soldiers, he
attended that prince during the siege of Mantua. He was struck by two
bullets which, though inflicting a troublesome wound, failed to kill
him--thanks to the excellent temper of his cuirass; whereupon he
observes that "he found a longer stay at Mantua did not agree with his
desire to travel." He made his way to the East carrying with him a vast
quantity of cinque-cento[E] enamel work and jewelry, which he sold to
the Asiatic sovereigns, and bringing back a number of precious stones
which he sold to the kings of Europe. Jean Baptiste Tavernier was, in
fact, a sort of peddler among princes.
[E] During the visit of the Prince of Wales to India a few years
ago it was observed that some curious old jewels of Italian
make appeared at the gorgeous pageants which the native princes
ordered for the benefit of their future Emperor. It is thought
that these were heirlooms dating from Tavernier's time.
He made in all six journeys to India during the space of forty years,
and amassed great wealth. Although a Protestant, he was ennobled by
Louis XIV. on account of the services he had rendered to French
commerce, and he thereupon bought the barony of Aubonne in Switzerland
which he afterwards sold to Duquesne the great navigator.
Louis XIV. was one of his best customers and bought from him jewels and
rich stuffs to the enormous amount of three millions of francs; about
six hundred thousand dollars. It was on his return from his last voyage,
namely in 1668, that Tavernier sold the Blue Diamond to Louis XIV.
Unfortunately he does not give any particulars of the purchase of this
stone, which is singular as he was a very chatty writer and filled his
book with a quantity of delightful little passages beginning "I remember
once." He describes at great length the Eastern manner of buying and
selling diamonds. Their methods seems greatly to have impressed him,
accustomed as he was to the noisy bartering of European markets.
He says:
"'Tis very pleasant to see the young children of the merchants (at
the diamond mines) from the age of ten to sixteen years, who seat
themselves upon a tree that lies in an open space of the town
(Raolconda, a diamond region near Golconda). Every one of them has
his diamond-weight in a little bag hanging on one side and his
purse with five or six hundred pagods in it. There they sit waiting
for any one to come and sell them some diamonds. If any one brings
them a stone they put it into the hand of the eldest boy among them
who is, as it were, their chief; who looks upon it and after that
gives it to him that is next him, by which means it goes from hand
to hand till it returns back to him again, none of the rest
speaking a word. After that he demands the price so as to buy it if
possible, but if he buy it too dear it is upon his own account. In
the evening the children compute what they have laid out; then they
look upon the stones and separate them according to their water,
their weight and their clearness. Then they bring them to the large
merchants who have generally great parcels to match, and the profit
is divided among the children equally. Only the chief among them
has four per cent. more than the rest."
It may have been from some such sedate children that Tavernier bought
the Blue Diamond. At the same time he mentions the Coleroon mine as the
only one which produces colored diamonds, from which we may infer that
"the Blue" hails from that locality. As Tavernier was well-known as a
diamond-buyer who gave good prices, it is probable that he would get
many proffers of stones from private persons. With regard to another
large diamond which he bought in India, he has given a minute account
of the transaction which may be taken as a fair sample of Asiatic
bartering:
"One day towards evening a Banian badly dressed, who had nothing on
but a cloth around his loins and a nasty kerchief on his head,
saluted me civilly and came and sat down beside me. In that country
(India) no heed is given to the clothes. A man with nothing but a
dirty piece of calico around his body may all the same have a good
lot of diamonds concealed. On my side, therefore, I was civil to
the Banian and after he had been some time seated he asked me
through my interpreter if I would buy some rubies. The interpreter
said he must show them to me, whereupon he pulled a little rag from
his waist-cloth in which were twenty ruby rings. I said they were
too small a thing for me as I only sought for large stones.
Nevertheless, remembering that I had a commission from a lady in
Ispahan to buy her a ruby ring for a hundred crowns, I bought one
for four hundred francs. I knew well that it was worth only three
hundred, but I chanced the other hundred in the belief that he had
not come to me for that alone. Judging from his manner that he
would gladly be alone with me and my interpreter in order to show
me something better, I sent away my four servants to fetch some
bread from the fortress. Being thus alone with the Banian, after
much ado he took off his turban and untwisted his hair which was
coiled around his head. Then I saw come from beneath his hair a
scrap of linen in which was wrapped up a diamond weighing
forty-eight and a half carats, of beautiful water, in form of a
carbuchon,[F] two thirds of the stone clear except a small patch on
one side which seemed to penetrate the stone. The fourth quarter
was all cracks and red spots. As I was examining the stone the
Banian, seeing my close attention, said: 'Don't amuse yourself with
looking at it now. You will see it to-morrow alone at your leisure.
When a quarter of the day is passed,' 'tis thus they speak, 'you
will find me outside the town, and if you want the stone you will
bring me the money.' And he told me the sum he wanted for it. I did
not fail to go to him and bring him the required sum, with the
exception of two hundred pagods which I put aside, but which after
a dispute I had to give him also. At my return to Surat I sold the
stone to a Dutch captain out of whom I had an honest profit."
[F] This is probably a misuse of the word, as "carbuchons," namely
polished globules, are never made of diamonds; a rose is what
was meant and one of Tavernier's editors made a mistake.
This last remark suggests the reason why Tavernier did not mention the
sum demanded by the Banian for his diamond. Possibly the long-headed
peddler feared that had he stated the amounts his readers might not have
deemed his profit quite so honest. Can this be the reason, moreover, of
his total silence regarding the purchase of the Blue Diamond? It seems
the fate of this stone to come from out of the Unknown in a mysterious
fashion. We shall meet it, appearing suddenly and without a history.
Tavernier gives three drawings of this Blue Diamond, which was, he said,
clear and of a lovely violet hue, and its weight in the rough was one
hundred and twelve and one quarter carats. There is no other example of
a blue diamond of this deep tint known--a fact which went far to
establish the identity of the Blue Diamond in aftertimes. Diamonds of
all the colors which belong of right to other precious stones are
occasionally found. Thus they are red, green, yellow, and blue. The
first and last named tints being the rarest, while the yellow is
decidedly common. The true diamond, however, no matter what may be its
hue, has an iridescent brightness which no other gem can counterfeit.
This iridescence, coupled with its hardness, forms the test of the
diamond; and its absence never fails to reveal the nature of an
impostor. If anything can scratch a stone, that stone is not a diamond.
The writer, in common with all her schoolmates, once bestowed a great
deal of admiration and no small portion of envy upon a young companion
on the strength of that young companion's diamond, a lustrous gem of
most remarkable size. Alas! our admiration was undeserved and our envy
misplaced. That splendid diamond had upon its upper surface three deep
scratches!
[Illustration: TAVERNIER'S BLUE DIAMOND.]
[Illustration: THE "HOPE BLUE" DIAMOND.]
But to return. When Louis XIV. bought from Tavernier at, we will say, an
"honest profit" to the seller, that three millions' worth of precious
stuffs and stones, he became possessed of the Blue Diamond. This was in
1668 when the king was in the full tide of his glory, and also of his
extravagance, conquering provinces, building palaces and buying gems.
There seems to be no record of the first cutting of the Blue Diamond, if
indeed it was cut at all during the reign of the "Grand Monarque." And
what is still more strange, it seems to have attracted very little
attention, its heaven-blue tint being perhaps somewhat dimmed by the
more striking splendor of the Regent which ere long was to attract all
eyes and absorb all attention.
In 1776, fourteen hundred and seventy-one diamonds belonging to the
French crown were sold, and the money thus obtained was used in
re-cutting the remainder besides adding sundry other jewels to the
Regalia. In February, 1788, the Antwerp Gazette makes known to the world
that there had just been completed in that city a work of great
magnitude. This was the re-cutting into brilliants of all the
rose-diamonds belonging to the King of France. The reader will remember
that "roses" are diamonds covered over with facets, such as the Orloff,
while the brilliant properly so-called is a double pyramid, a highly
refracting figure, of which the Regent and the Koh-i-nûr are examples.
Diamond cutting was a lost art in France; hence the reason of sending
the gems to Antwerp. Cardinal Mazarin, a great diamond fancier, had
endeavored to stimulate diamond-cutting in Paris. He had imported
workmen and wheels and then had caused his own stones and those of the
king to be cut. When this was done, and further diamonds not being
forthcoming, in order to still encourage his pet industry he had the
same stones cut a second time! Such expensive encouragement of the
diamond-cutting trade has probably never been heard of before or since.
The Antwerp artists having accomplished their task to the satisfaction
of Louis XVI., "he rewarded with presents, magnificent and really worthy
of a King of France, all those who had a hand in it." The Blue Diamond
came forth from the hands of the cutter an irregularly-shaped brilliant
of a drop form weighing sixty-seven and one half carats.
In 1791, it was entered in the inventory of the Crown Jewels, which was
drawn up by order of the Constituent Assembly, at the high valuation of
six hundred thousand dollars. It will be thus seen that it had
enormously increased in value since its "rough" days, for then the Blue
Diamond as well as all the other diamonds and precious stuffs were
bought from Tavernier for that precise amount.
[Illustration: "BRUNSWICK" BLUE DIAMOND.]
In the story of "the Regent" an account was given of the robbery of the
Garde Meuble in September, 1792, when the French jewels were stolen. The
Blue Diamond shared the fate of all the rest. It was stolen, but
unfortunately it was not found in that mysterious Allée des Veuves
where the Regent lay hidden. In fact, Tavernier's Blue Diamond, weighing
sixty-seven carats, never again re-appeared as such. Men had something
else to think of in France besides diamonds during the forty years which
followed the great robbery, so that the very existence of a blue diamond
was pretty nearly forgotten. True that John Mane, a fairly reliable
authority on diamonds, says that "There is at this time (1813) a
superlatively fine blue diamond of above forty-four carats in the
possession of an individual in London which may be considered as
matchless and of course of arbitrary value." This is a most important
statement, and in the light of subsequent investigations it would point
almost conclusively to the fact that the French Blue, already
metamorphosed, was in alien hands, except for the fact that the same
writer a little further on makes the announcement of a Blue Diamond,
weight sixty-seven carats, being amongst the Crown Jewels of France at
the same moment.
However this may be, suddenly, in 1830, the small world of
diamond-worshipers was startled by the appearance in the market of a
unique stone. A deep blue diamond, forty-four and one fourth carats,
which Mr. Daniel Eliason had for sale and about which he could give no
details. It sprang suddenly upon the world without a history, unless
indeed it be the same as that mentioned by Mane some eighteen years
before--and yet it was a cut and polished brilliant. Its form was
irregular, for it had one very flat side. Mr. Henry Philip Hope bought
it for ninety thousand dollars; and it henceforward became known as the
"Hope Blue."
As a notable gem in a famous private collection the Hope Blue enjoyed
for years a quiet distinction. It was set round about with pearls and
white diamonds to enhance its azure and had a beautiful pearl-drop for
pendant. Altogether it was a neat and delightful trinket; price one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Little or nothing was thought about
it until the death of the Duke of Brunswick, the mad diamond-miser who
used to sleep surrounded with mechanical pistols which were warranted to
go off with such fatal facility that it is a marvel they did not shoot
his Grace in mistake for a burglar. In 1874, the Brunswick diamonds came
to the hammer and amongst them a blue stone of six carats weight. Mr.
Streeter, than whom there exists no better authority on diamonds, had
this stone and the Hope Blue put into his hands together. He found that
they were identical in color and quality, that the sides of cleavage
matched as nearly as could be determined after the cutting, while the
united weights plus the calculated less from re-cutting amounted to the
weight of the French Blue. He immediately drew the very natural
conclusion that both these stones were once united and formed the Blue
Diamond brought from India by Tavernier. He, it will be remembered,
called it of a "lovely violet" and as only very few other blue diamonds
are known to be in existence, and they are all of a pale blue tint, we
must admit that the weight of evidence hangs strongly in favor of Mr.
Streeter's reasoning.
[Illustration: "HOPE BLUE" DIAMOND, AS MOUNTED.]
The collection of the late Mr. Hope was a very large and valuable one.
Of course the blue diamond was its chief glory, but it contained other
gems of value. A portion of these were recently offered for sale
consisting of diamonds, sapphires, opals and pearls, set and unset, and
of rings, crosses and bracelets, of all sorts of shapes and patterns.
The display reminded one of a jeweller's show-case except for this
remarkable difference. There were no two objects alike, and all showed
the refined taste of an amateur rather than the massive showiness of the
mere commercial jewel.
Mr. Hope engaged an eminent jeweller, Mr. Hertz, at an eminent fee (five
thousand dollars) to catalogue his jewels. This gentleman performed his
task with business-like succinctness, using no unnecessary words to
describe the numerous precious objects. But when he reached the Blue
Diamond he launches out into unbridled enthusiasm. He says:
"This matchless gem combines the beautiful color of the sapphire
with the prismatic fire and brilliancy of the diamond, and on
account of its extraordinary color, great size and other fine
qualities it certainly may be called unique, as we may presume
there exists no cabinet nor any collection of crown jewels in the
world which can boast of the possession of so curious and fine a
gem as the one we are now describing, and we expect to be borne out
in our opinion by our readers. There are extant historical records
and treatises on the precious gems which give us descriptions of
all the extraordinary diamonds in the possession of all the crowned
heads of Europe as well as of the princes of the Eastern countries.
But in vain do we search for any record of a gem which can in point
of curiosity, beauty and perfection be compared with this blue
brilliant, etc."
Mr. Hertz was no doubt a good jeweller and a clever expert, but he was
not very learned in the history of precious stones or he could never
have made this astonishing statement. He had only to search in the
records of France to find the account of a wonderful blue diamond of
even greater size.
With regard to the value of the diamond, he declares his inability to
fix any sum, saying: "There being no precedent the value cannot be
established by comparison. The price which was once asked for this
diamond was thirty thousand pounds (one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars) but we must confess for the above stated reason that it might
have been estimated at even a higher sum." There was a precedent for
estimating its value; but of that Mr. Hertz was ignorant. The French
Blue was valued at three millions of livres (six hundred thousand
dollars) when it weighed sixty-seven carats. According to this
calculation one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was not an excessive
price to put upon the Hope Blue of forty-four carats.
The Hope Blue still remains in the possession of the family which has
given it that name, while the other fraction of the dissevered French
Blue is likewise in private hands. This is much to be regretted from the
historian's point of view, for famous diamonds acquire a great deal of
their value and all their interest from the persons who have owned them.
For a gem which has graced the royal festivities of Versailles as the
Blue Diamond has done, or enhanced the stately ceremonials of the
Escurial as was the case with the Pelegrina, to sink into obscurity in
the collection of a wealthy Mr. Unknown or in the jewel casket of a
Princess Nobody is a sad decadence. Jewels, from their value and
indestructibleness, are among the few objects used by the illustrious
dead which can and do remain unaltered in appearance, therefore it is
contrary to our sense of the fitness of things for a historical gem to
cease to be such by belonging to a person without a history.
VI.
THE BRAGANZA.
If the stone which is known by the name of the "Braganza," or the
"Regent of Portugal," is a diamond, it is undoubtedly the largest that
was ever found in either ancient or modern times. But then it is by no
means certain that it is a diamond at all. It would be quite easy to
establish the fact by submitting the stone to the examination of
experts, but apparently the Royal House of Portugal holds that the
Braganza, like Cæsar's wife, should be above suspicion. At all events
the fact remains that this monster diamond has never been seen by any
independent expert whose judgment would be accepted without appeal. When
the learned are in doubt it would ill become us to decide; therefore,
without offering an opinion, we shall, provisionally at least, class
the Braganza among the diamonds of this series; and when its true
character is established beyond dispute we shall know whether to call it
the Monarch of Diamonds or only a vulgar impostor.
The stated weight of the Braganza reaches the astounding figure of one
thousand six hundred and eighty carats. Of course this is in its rough
state, for the giant gem has refused to trust itself to the hands of any
cutter however skillful. Yet this weight exceeds by more than double the
weight, in the rough, of the next largest diamond known to history,
namely, the Great Mogul. When we think of the price of the Regent--over
six hundred thousand dollars, while weighing only four hundred and ten
carats in the rough--and then turn to the Braganza with its sixteen
hundred carats, the mind staggers before the money-value thus suggested.
All the other famous diamonds of which we have treated have been
Asiatic; but the Braganza, like the Pelegrina Pearl, hails from the New
World. Consequently its history does not reach back into those misty
past ages whither we went groping after the Orloff and the Koh-i-nûr.
The Braganza is a diamond of yesterday, hence the account of its finding
is clear, minute and accurate.
Here it is. The speaker is Joseph Mawe, a geologist, merchant and
traveler who visited Brazil in the first decade of this century and
whose book on the countries which he saw is our best authority on that
part of South America.
"A few leagues to the north of the Rio Prata is a rivulet named
Abaité, celebrated for having produced the largest diamond in the
Prince's possession, which was found about twelve years ago (namely
1797). It may be allowed me in this place to relate the particulars
as they were detailed to me during my stay at Tejuco. Three
intelligent men having been found guilty of high crimes were
banished into the interior, and ordered not to approach any of the
capital towns or to remain in civilized society on pain of
perpetual imprisonment. Driven by this hard sentence into the most
unfrequented part of the country, they endeavored to explore new
mines or new productions in the hope that sooner or later they
might have the good fortune to make some important discovery, which
would obtain a reversal of their sentence and enable them to regain
their station in society. They wandered about in this neighborhood,
making frequent searches, in its various rivers, for more than six
years, during which time they were exposed to a double risk, being
continually liable to become the prey of the _Anthropophagi_, and
in no less danger of being seized by the soldiers of the
Government. At length by hazard they made some trials in the river
Abaité at a time when its waters were so low, in consequence of a
long season of drought, that a part of its bed was left exposed.
Here while searching and washing for gold they had the good fortune
to find a diamond nearly an ounce in weight.[G]