Recollecting that his own path to the throne lay through the blood of
his nearest relatives, Shah Jehan, no longer able to defend his eldest
son against the undutiful Aurungzeb, gave him two elephant-loads of gold
and jewels, and bade him escape. The Great Mogul diamond was apparently
among the jewels thus despairingly bestowed upon his son by the
enfeebled old king. At all events Dara escaped and fled from friend to
friend for the space of one year, and it was during this time that he
was seen by Bernier, the famous French surgeon, who was afterwards
attached to the service of Aurungzeb.
Meantime that successful traitor dethroned and then imprisoned his
father, whose grandiloquent title of Shah Jehan (Lord of the World)
became a bitter mockery when designating the prisoner of Agra, and then
he awaited the treachery of some of Dara's so-called friends. In the
course of a twelvemonth, his patience was rewarded. The chief of Jun,
who had reason to be grateful for many favors from Dara, gained an
infamous notoriety by delivering the fugitive prince over to his
usurping brother.
Aurungzeb caused Prince Dara to be publicly paraded through the streets
of Delhi with his little seven-year-old grandson by his side, while the
executioner stood ominously behind him. This pitiful spectacle was
witnessed by all Delhi, and many tears were shed over the fall of Dara,
but "no one raised a hand to aid him," remarks Bernier, who was one of
the spectators. After a mock trial the unhappy prince was sentenced to
death, and a slave with several satellites was sent to the prison of
Gevalior to dispatch him. Dara was engaged in cooking some lentils for
himself and his little grandson, for this was the only food he would
touch, lest they should be secretly poisoned. The moment the slaves
entered, he cried out, "Behold, my son, those who are come to slay us!"
and snatching up a small knife he tried to defend himself and the child.
It was an unequal fight which could but end in one way. The boy was
quickly made an end of, and Dara being thrown down was held by the legs
while one of the slaves cut off his head. The head was then immediately
brought to Aurungzeb, as a certificate that his orders had been duly
executed. The king desired the face to be washed and wiped in his
presence and then, when he saw that it was the veritable head of Dara,
his brother, he fell a-weeping and cried aloud: "O, Dara! O, unhappy
man! Take it away! Bury it in the tomb of Humaiyun."
Such was the fate of Dara, the second owner of the Great Mogul.
In conclusion Tavernier says of the treasures belonging to Aurungzeb:
"These then are the jewels of the Grand Mogul which he showed to me
by a particular grace granted to no other foreigner, and I held
them all in my hand and considered them with so much attention and
leisure that I can assure the reader that the description which I
have given is very exact and faithful, as also of the stones which
I had time enough to contemplate."
Here absolutely ends the history of this magnificent gem. What became of
it no one knows. Whether it was lost in the sack of Delhi, or carried
off by Nadir Shah along with the Koh-i-nûr, it is impossible to say, or
even to conjecture with any degree of plausibility. No account of this
grand diamond, however, would be complete without some reference to the
extraordinary myths which have gathered around it. There is scarcely
another large diamond of no matter what size, or what color, or what
shape, that has not sometime, or by somebody, been declared to be the
Great Mogul. Its subsequent history seems to be the happy hunting-ground
of the foolish theories of writers on precious stones. Men who write
carefully enough about other diamonds, launch out into the wildest
conjectures about the Great Mogul. They apparently cannot bear the
thought of losing so precious a gem and therefore they find it
somewhere, no matter to what inconsistency and absurdity they may be
reduced in the process of identification.
Take a few examples.
It has been maintained that the Great Mogul is the Orloff; that it is
the Koh-i-nûr; that it is both together; that it is the Orloff, the
Koh-i-nûr and a third beside, now lost, which Hortenzio Borgis obtained
by cleavage--the precise thing which Tavernier distinctly says he did
not do, preferring to grind it down; that it was not a diamond at all,
but a white topaz--as if Tavernier, the greatest expert of his times,
would not have detected that fact. Even Mr. Streeter, in general a most
reliable authority on diamonds, is dazzled into inconsistency when he
comes to treat of the Great Mogul. In his work, _Precious Stones and
Gems_, published in 1877, he says under the head of celebrated diamonds:
"The diamond known as the Great Mogul has received an amount of
attention beyond any other. _Under the name of the Koh-i-nûr (Mountain
of Light)_ it played an important part in the Exhibition of 1851," etc.,
etc. Now harken to Mr. Streeter writing in 1882: "If this description
(Tavernier's) be compared with the models both of the Koh-i-nûr and of
the Great Mogul itself in our possession, all doubts will be at once
removed as to the essentially different character of the two crystals."
Again: "The two differ absolutely in their origin, history, size and
form!" The Mr. Streeter of 1882 is wisely ignorant of the lucubrations
of the Mr. Streeter of 1877.
Unable to offer the slightest hint as to the fate of the Great Mogul we
can only hope that some future day may reveal it, and until then we must
put up with our ignorance as best we may. It came and went in a flash of
glory, the Meteor of Diamonds.
X.
THE AUSTRIAN YELLOW.
The subject of this article is, as its name sets forth, a diamond of a
yellow hue. After the Orloff it is the largest cut diamond in Europe,
weighing one hundred and thirty-nine and a half carats. Tavernier, who
first mentions it, says "it has a tinge of yellow which is a pity." King
declares, "on the highest authority," which he does not further
particularize, that this tinge is a very strong one, almost destroying
its brilliancy.
Yellow diamonds are not necessarily devoid of brilliancy, as we can bear
witness from personal knowledge. There was recently offered for sale at
a public auction in London a very large specimen known as the Orange
Diamond, of one hundred and ten carats weight, which we carefully
examined. The circumstances were decidedly adverse to the beauty of a
diamond, for it was in the half-light of a London fog that we saw it,
yet the stone seemed literally to shoot tongues of yellow fire from its
facets. It was a round brilliant, and being set in a circle of about a
score of white diamonds its tawny complexion was shown to admirable
advantage. The jewel was supported on a delicate spring which vibrated
with each step upon the floor, so that there was a constant coruscation
of light around it.
It is difficult to establish the early history of the Austrian Yellow.
Tavernier saw it in Florence somewhere about 1642, but he does not say
whence it came. Its appearance proves it to be an Indian-cut rose, but
that does not help us much with regard to its private wanderings in
Europe. A good authority on diamonds, de Laet, who flourished shortly
before Tavernier's time, declared that the largest diamond then known
weighed seventy carats, which would clearly indicate that he knew
nothing about the much larger yellow diamond. Tradition relates that it
was bought for a few pence in the market at Florence, under the
impression that it was a piece of glass! If this is so, one would be
glad of some particulars of the moment when the happy possessor found
out his mistake.
[Illustration: THE AUSTRIAN YELLOW--TOP AND SIDE.]
Tavernier says that "the Grand Duke (of Tuscany) did him the honor to
show him the diamond several times." He made a drawing of it, as he did
of nearly all the large diamonds he saw, and his estimation of its value
is two millions of livres (about four hundred thousand dollars)--a low
price considering the size of the stone; but no doubt its yellow tinge
had something to say to it. The Grand Duke of Tavernier's time was
Ferdinand II., who reigned from 1621 to 1670--a man of considerable
enlightenment, a protector of Galileo and an encourager of literature.
If there is any truth in the popular belief to which we shall presently
allude, that diamonds promote the mutual affection of husband and wife,
then indeed the great yellow stone had need of its charm in the case of
Ferdinand's son and successor, Cosimo III. This luckless prince was
married to Marguerite Louise d'Orleans, niece of Louis XIV., a young
lady of flighty fancies and obstinate willfulness. Being deeply attached
to her cousin of Lorraine, she was only induced to give her hand to the
heir of Tuscany on the threat of imprisonment in a convent. She was
married in 1660 and made her state entry into Florence amid unparalleled
splendor. Immediately afterwards the courts of Europe rang with the
quarrels of the newly-wedded pair. The Pope of Rome, the King of France,
mother, sisters, aunts, ambassadors, bishops, cardinals, lady's maids,
each in turn interfered with the object of restoring harmony, and each
in turn ignominiously failed. Here surely was work for the diamond had
it been possessed of its reputed power.
During this time and for many years afterwards, the diamond about which
we write was known as the "Florentine" or "Grand Tuscan." It was the
chief jewel in the treasure-house of the Medici, and no doubt filled a
conspicuous place in the pageants of the grand-ducal court. The
Florentine sovereigns were not wealthy, but upon state occasions they
made extraordinary displays which sometimes deceived foreigners visiting
among them into a false idea of their affluence. A wedding was always a
favorite occasion upon which to show off their finery. For example, at
the marriage of Violante de Bavière with the son of Cosimo III., a
magnificence was displayed such as was never before seen even in
Florence. The bride sat on a car studded with gems. Her father-in-law
with his crown, no doubt containing the great diamond, upon his head,
met her at the gate of San Gallo and escorted her to the palace.
This princess dying childless, the throne was occupied by Giovan-Gaston,
another son of Cosimo III. and the flighty Marguerite. He likewise left
no heirs, so with his death in 1737 terminated the great house of
Medici. Giovan-Gaston was succeeded on the grand-ducal throne by Francis
Stephen of Lorraine, who was forced much against his inclination to
change his paternal duchy of Lorraine for that of Tuscany. He was
married to Maria Theresa, archduchess of Austria, afterwards so famous
as the Empress-queen who fought valiantly against Frederick the Great.
By the will of Giovan-Gaston dei Medici all the statues, books, pictures
and jewels of his palace were "to remain forever at Florence as public
property for the benefit of the people and the attraction of foreign
visitors," and none were to be removed from out of the Grand Duchy.
Francis Stephen and Maria Theresa entered their new capital, remained
there four months, and then departing carried away with them the great
Tuscan diamond. So much for the respect paid to the wills of dead
princes! Henceforward the yellow diamond became known as the Austrian
Yellow in recognition, we suppose, of the royal thief who carried it off
from Florence.
At the coronation of Francis Stephen as emperor of Germany at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, on the fourth of October, 1745, the pilfered
diamond was used to decorate his Majesty's imperial diadem. Maria
Theresa had been extremely anxious for her husband to be emperor, both
because she was fondly attached to him, and because she wanted him to
hold a title equal at least to her own as Queen of Hungary. She stood on
a balcony at the ceremony and was the first to salute him with the cry
of "Long live the Emperor!" when the crown had been placed upon his
head. Our readers will of course be aware that the imperial dignity was
an elective one. It remained, it is true, in the Hapsburg family, still
it did not descend from father to son like the other crowns of Europe,
and the ceremony of a fresh election was gone through at the death of
each emperor.
Napoleon, who upset most things in Europe, failed not to upset the
throne of Charlemagne. The Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist in 1806,
and Francis I., the elected emperor, abdicated the old German throne to
mount the brand-new one of Austria.
We return to our diamond.
Francis Stephen, although emperor and reputed owner of the yellow
diamond, was quite overshadowed by the fame and splendor of his wife
Maria Theresa. It is on record that one day being present at some high
ceremony, he left the circle around the throne and went to sit in a
corner beside a couple of ladies. They rose respectfully at his
approach.
"Oh! don't mind me," he said, "I am only going to sit here and watch
the crowd until the court is gone."
"As long as your Imperial Majesty is present the court will be here,"
replied the ladies.
"Not at all," said Francis Stephen. "The court is my wife and children.
I'm nobody."
And such indubitably was the fact The Empress adored him, but he was
nobody and has left but little trace in history. He was very fond of
money and sometimes resorted to singular means in order to turn an
honest penny. When his wife was engaged in that long struggle with the
King of Prussia which goes in history by the name of the Seven Years'
War, he made a good sum by supplying the enemy's cavalry with forage.
Another strange though somewhat less crooked means of augmenting his
riches is related concerning his diamonds. He employed himself for a
considerable time in a series of experiments which had for their object
the melting down of small diamonds with the view of making a large one.
No doubt Francis Stephen would have been very pleased to smelt up a
good number of diamonds if he could thereby have produced a match for
his great yellow gem; but it is easier to burn diamonds than to fuse
them.
The storms and revolutions which nearly shook the house of Austria to
the ground have left its diamond untouched. It was carefully preserved
in the hasty flights from Vienna which occurred during the effervescing
period of 1848 when all Europe was in an uproar. And now it reposes
peacefully as a hat-button for the Emperor Francis II. In appearance the
diamond is a nine-rayed star, and is all covered with facets, according
to the true Indian fashion. It may possibly interest the reader to hear
what the Austrians themselves think of their diamond. The following
extract is made from the official account furnished to Mr. Streeter:
"This jewel was once the property of Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, who according to the custom of the day carried all his
valuables in the battlefield, first to have them always in sight,
and secondly on account of the mysterious power then attributed to
precious stones. Charles lost this diamond at the battle of Morat,
on the twenty-second of June, 1476. Tradition relates that it was
picked up by a peasant who took it for a piece of glass and sold it
for a florin. The new owner, Bartholomew May, a citizen of Berne,
sold it to the Genoese, who sold it in turn to Ludovico Moro
Sforza. By the intercession of the Fuggers it came into the Medici
treasury at Florence. When Francis Stephen of Lorraine exchanged
this duchy against the grand-duchy of Tuscany he became owner of
the Florentine diamond."
Of this extraordinary tale the concluding sentence alone is the only one
worthy of the slightest attention; all the rest is mere legend.
Contemporary accounts show that Charles the Bold had no diamond at all
similar to the Austrian Yellow either in size or shape; two very
important factors in establishing the identity of a diamond.
* * * * *
We have now reached the last great diamond which it is our purpose to
chronicle, and it is hoped that the reader has become sufficiently
interested in these sparkling pebbles to bear with equanimity a few
technical details concerning their nature and the processes which they
undergo before becoming ornaments for the crowns of kings or the
brooches of queens.
[Illustration: DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH.]
That the diamond depends for its beauty almost entirely upon the labor
of man is sufficiently known. The rough diamond is seldom a beautiful
object, being usually coated with a greenish film which gives it the
look of an ordinary pebble. It requires the eye of an adept to recognize
any potentiality of sparkle in so dull a lump. The ordinary rock-crystal
is infinitely more beautiful until the royal gem has been transformed
by human skill. But after the touch of the magic wheel there is no
substance which can compare with the diamond for luster, brilliancy and
iridescence.
Certain Indian diamonds finished by the hand of Nature and known as
"Naifes," are an exception to the rule that rough diamonds are dull
looking. They are seldom or never found now, but were greatly prized by
the natives in olden times and considered superior to the artificially
polished stone. They were octahedral in form, with polished facets. The
primary crystalline form of the diamond is the octahedron, or a figure
of eight sides; but it by no means confines itself to this form alone.
It sometimes assumes twelve-sided shapes, or is merely a cube, or yet
again variations of these figures.
The atoms composing the diamond tend to place themselves in layers, and
the discovery of this fact facilitated the cutting of the stone, as by
finding the grain a skillful manipulator was able to cleave off
protuberances at a blow.
The accompanying diagrams represent a certain large diamond both in the
rough and after it was cut into a brilliant, and they will help to
explain the process of diamond-cutting, which is briefly as follows: The
first process is to make lead models of the stone in its actual state
and also in the ideal, namely, after it is cut. By this means is found
out the most economical way to shape it. The next step is to cleave it
toward that shape as far as possible. Cleaving is performed in two ways;
by a steel saw strung on a whalebone and coated with diamond dust which
saws off the required amount; or by scratching a nick with a diamond
point in the direction of the grain and splitting it off with one blow.
This latter process, observes an old writer, requires great strength of
mind as well as dexterity of hand, for by an unlucky blow a valuable
stone may be utterly ruined. Supposing however that the cleavage has
been safely performed, the diamond is next fixed into a handle and is
so imbedded in a soft cement as to leave exposed only that portion which
is to be ground. By means of another diamond similarly imbedded in a
handle it is worked down to the requisite shape. The dust from the two
grinding diamonds is carefully saved and is used for polishing them.
This process is effected by means of a disk of soft iron about a foot in
diameter, coated with the diamond dust mixed with olive oil, and made
to revolve very rapidly in a horizontal position. The portion of the
diamond to be polished is then pressed against the revolving wheel and a
high state of polish is thus attained. The grinding of the facets is
entirely governed by eye, and such is the dexterity and accuracy
attained by good manipulators that perfect roses are cut so small that
fifteen hundred of them go to the carat; and when we remember that one
hundred and fifty carats go to an ounce we shall have some faint idea of
the minuteness of the work.[J]
[J] The carat is the seed of a kind of vetch common in India, and
is of such uniform weight that it naturally suggested itself
as a standard measure, just as in our country the barley grain
was taken as the unit.
In Europe the brilliant is the usual form to give to the diamond, and
the one most admired. The invention of this particular method of cutting
is due to Vincenzo Peruzzi, a Venetian, who seems to have introduced the
fashion in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He discovered that
the utmost light and fire could be obtained by reducing the diamond to
the shape of a pair of truncated cones, united at the base with
thirty-two facets above and twenty-four below the girdle or largest
circumference.
[Illustration: DIAMOND AFTER CUTTING, TOP, BOTTOM AND SIDE.]
Reference to the illustrations will explain the following technical
terms: _a_, the upper surface, is called the _table_; _b_, its sloping
edge, the _beasil_; _c_, the girdle; _d_, the lower pointed portion, is
called the _pavilion_, and the bottom plane, the _collet_. Of the
thirty-two top facets only those are called _star-facets_ which touch
the table; all the rest, as well as those below the girdle, are called
_skill-facets_.
The old "table diamonds," once so highly prized, may be described as
having the table and collet greatly enlarged at the expense of the
beasil and pavilion. The rose diamond is covered with equal facets,
either twelve or twenty-four in number, the base of the stone being
flat. This rule holds only for European roses; the Orientals covered
their diamonds with irregular facets following exactly the shape of the
stone, as with them the one object was to preserve the weight of the
stone as far as possible.
Chemically speaking, the diamond is almost pure carbon, and may be said
to be first cousin to ordinary coal and half-brother to the smoke of an
oil lamp. If the lordly gem should refuse to acknowledge such mean
relations it can always be confronted with the "black diamond," which
though an undoubted diamond, looks so very like a piece of coal that the
kinship is evident. The present writer once saw a very costly _parure_
belonging to the Countess of Dudley, composed entirely of black diamonds
set heavily in gold. Being a very little girl she considered it a great
waste of the precious metal to employ it to set such ugly stones. She is
of the same opinion still.
In ancient times the diamond was credited with a vast number of occult
virtues. Thus it was said by the Romans to baffle poison, keep off
insanity and dispel vain fears. The Italians believed that it maintained
love between man and wife, but we have already seen one notable
instance in which it signally failed to render this useful service. One
is at a loss to imagine how such a belief became common, seeing the
number of diamonds which belonged to royal personages, and the state of
affairs prevalent in their domestic life. In England, at the same
period, diamonds were looked upon as deadly poisons. The murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury in the Tower of London during the reign of James I. was
said to have been attempted by means of these gems ground to powder.
Overbury certainly died, and presumably by foul means, but modern
science has acquitted diamonds of having any share in the crime.
There is a certain rule for estimating the price of a diamond, and
singular to say it is the old Indian rule by which Tavernier was guided
in his purchases, and which modern commerce has been content to let
stand. The current market price of a good cut diamond, one carat in
weight being ascertained, the square of the weight of the diamond to be
valued is multiplied by that figure. The present selling price in
London of a clear and faultless cut diamond one carat in weight is one
hundred dollars, one of three carats therefore would be worth
3×3×100=$900.
Were our advice asked with regard to the purchase of these valuable
pebbles whose history has so long occupied our attention, we should
refer our interlocutor to that Chinese philosopher who on being asked
why he kept bowing and saying, "Thank you, thank you," to the
gem-bedecked mandarin, replied:
"I am thanking him for buying all those diamonds and undertaking the
trouble and anxiety of keeping them safe that I, undisturbed, may look
at them and admire them at my leisure."
XI.
A FAMOUS NECKLACE.