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 passages. Thus, when writing of diamonds he assumes a critical
attitude 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
bloody 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 Assembly
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 assented, and he delivered over the
stone to Monsieur Levrat who was to pay by instalments. Instead of
paying, he pawned 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 glass 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
Eugénie'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-Nûr
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 pass 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-nûr, 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 Nûr 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 assumed 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
ambassador from the emperor Shah Jehan, and the King was within a
hair-breadth of falling into the hands of the treacherous ambassador
when he received timely warning and saved himself by flight. With a
courtesy which Tavernier finds passing graceful the fugitive King sent
back to his rebel vassal 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.
After Emir Jemla had presented his matchless diamond to Shah Jehan, who
was a man of taste in gems, he gave the Emperor to understand that the
diamonds of Golconda were quite other things from "those rocks of
Kandahar," which he had seen hitherto. This was a rather contemptuous
phrase to use to an emperor who already possessed the Koh-i-nûr.
However, the stone which Emir Jemla gave to Shah Jehan so far exceeded
everything that had been hitherto dreamed of in the way of diamonds that
he might be excused if he exaggerated somewhat.
It will be well here to quote Tavernier's account of the Great Mogul
diamond, even though something out of the chronological order. The
occasion is Tavernier's departure from Delhi on his sixth and last
return from India to Europe.
"The first of November, 1665, I was at the Palace to take leave of
the King (Aurungzeb) but he said I must not go without seeing his
jewels since I had seen the magnificence of his fête. Next morning
very early five or six officers came from the king and others from
the Nabob Jafer Khan, to say the king was waiting for me. As soon
as I arrived the two courtiers who had charge of the jewels
accompanied me to his Majesty, and after the customary salutations
they took me into a small chamber situated at the end of the hall
where the king was sitting on his throne, and whence he could see
us. I found in this chamber Akel Khan, the chief keeper of the
jewels, who as soon as he saw me commanded the four eunuchs of the
king to go and fetch the jewels which were brought on two wooden
trays lacquered with gold-leaf, and covered with cloths made on
purpose, one of red velvet and one of green velvet embroidered.
After they were uncovered and had been counted, each piece two or
three times, a list was drawn up by the three scribes present.
Indians do all things with much care and deliberation, and when
they see any one acting with precipitation or getting angry they
look upon it as a thing to laugh at.
"The first piece which Akel Khan put into my hands was the great
diamond which is a round rose, cut very high on one side. On the
lower edge there is a slight crack and a little flaw in it. Its
water is beautiful and it weighs 319 1-2 ratis which make 280 of
our carats, the ratis being 7-8 of our carat. When Mergimola
(_i.e._ Emir Jemla) who betrayed the king of Golconda, his master,
made present of this stone to Shah Jehan to whose court he retired,
it was rough, and weighed then 900 ratis which make 787 1-2 carats,
and there were several flaws in it. If this stone had been in
Europe it would have been differently treated, for several good
slices would have been taken off, and it would have remained
heavier instead of which it has been entirely ground down. It was
Hortenzio Borgis, a Venetian, who cut it, for which he was
sufficiently badly recompensed, for when it was seen, he was
reproached with having ruined the stone, which should have remained
heavier, and instead of paying him for his work, the king fined
him ten thousand rupees and would have taken more if he had
possessed it. If Sieur Hortenzio had understood his business well
he would have been able to get several good pieces from this stone
without doing any wrong to the King, and without having the trouble
of grinding it down, but he was an unskillful diamond-cutter."
Tavernier held this great stone in his hand for some time and
contemplated it at his leisure. It must have been a great day for him,
the connoisseur, to see and examine the finest diamond in existence. It
is well he looked long and keenly at it, for it was never again to be
seen by European eyes. On this second of November, 1665, the Great Mogul
was seen for the first, last and only time by one able to tell us
anything about it. This was its meteor-flash into history and fame. It
was seen by the man best able to appreciate it and then never seen
again. The accompanying illustration is taken from Tavernier's drawing
of the Great Mogul.
Incidentally we learn something more of the monster diamond from the pen
of the same writer. Speaking of the Coulour or Gani diamond-mine,
Tavernier says:
"There are still found there large stones, larger than elsewhere,
from ten to forty carats and sometimes larger, among them the great
diamond which weighed nine hundred carats (an evident slip for
ratis) before being cut, which Mirgimola presented to Aurungzeb
(another slip for Shah Jehan) as I have said before."
To explain these slips of Tavernier's pen it will be well to state that
the great Frenchman, though speaking all European and many Asiatic
languages, was yet unable to write in any, not even in his own. He
therefore borrowed the pen of two different persons to write his
delightful travels which give us such a living picture of Indian life
two centuries ago. The Coulour mine, here spoken of, was discovered
about a century before Tavernier's time, in a very singular manner. A
peasant when preparing the ground to sow millet, unearthed a sparkling
pebble which excited his attention. Golconda was near enough for him to
have heard of diamonds, so he brought his prize to a merchant at the
latter place. The merchant was amazed to see in the peasant's pebble a
very large diamond. The fame of Coulour quickly spread, and it soon
became a great mining center, employing thousands of workmen. Tavernier
objects that the mine yielded stones of impure water. The gems, he
declares, seemed to partake of the nature of the soil and tended to a
greenish, a reddish, or a yellowish hue as the case might be.
[Illustration: THE GREAT MOGUL.]
This defect was not apparent in the Great Mogul which was, he distinctly
says, perfect, of good water and of good form, having but one little
flaw on the lowest edge. Taking this flaw into consideration, the value
of the diamond, according to Tavernier's scale of estimation, was
11,723,278 livres which being reduced to present coinage yields the
goodly sum of $2,344,655. Being permitted to weigh it, he found the
exact weight to be 279 9-16 carats.
Then after looking at the diamond as long as he wanted, for Akel Khan
did in no wise hurry him, Tavernier was shown a multitude of other gems
of lesser note, and among them a pearl perfectly round, weighing
thirty-six and one half ratis of beautiful luster, white, and perfect in
every way.
"This is the only jewel which Aurungzeb who reigns now has bought
on account of its beauty, for all the others came to him in part
from Dara, his eldest brother, to whose belongings he succeeded
after having cut off his head, and in part from presents from his
nobles."
This slight remark opens to our view one of the saddest chapters of the
gloomy family history of Shah Jehan's sons. And as Dara was once the
possessor of the Great Mogul, we may be allowed to give his pitiful
story in a few words.
Prince Dara (David) the eldest son of Shah Jehan and the Light of the
World, was destined by his father to succeed him on the throne of
Delhi. Having, as we have already seen, disposed of his other three sons
in the furthest corners of India, the old king thought he was safe. But
one of those sons, Aurungzeb, was a man of restless ambition. Not
content with his appointed province of the Deccan, Aurungzeb pretended
to the imperial crown itself. In 1657 Shah Jehan fell sick, and
Aurungzeb, attended by a large army, which included a contingent under
Emir Jemla's command, hastened toward Delhi. The aged emperor, dreading
the filial solicitude which arrayed itself in so formidable a manner,
sent orders to his son to return to his province. Aurungzeb not only did
not return, but persuaded another brother to come up from his province,
likewise attended by an army, and together they marched upon their
father's capital. The course of Asiatic intrigue is too complicated and
subtle for any but the merest antiquary to track it. Suffice it to say
that after much lying and many protestations of obedience, matters came
to a crisis, and Dara was sent by Shah Jehan to oppose Aurungzeb by
force.