Stories About Famous Precious Stones. Adela E. Orpen
throne. He abdicated in 1830 when at St. Cloud and proceeded with royal slowness to quit the kingdom.
He retained however his hold over the crown jewels while relinquishing the crown itself, for he carried the Regent and all the rest of the diamonds off to Rambouillet. As soon as the municipal government in Paris became aware of this fact they sent two agents to receive the precious objects from the hands of the ex-king. But his dethroned majesty would not give them up, whereupon a column of six thousand troops marched upon Rambouillet, and Charles was convinced by the irresistible logic of their flashing bayonets. He surrendered the Regent and other gems which were instantly appropriated by his "good cousin of Orleans," Louis Philippe.
He again in turn was obliged to fly and leave his diamonds behind; so that the Regent was found by Louis Napoleon amongst the other treasures of the country when he laid hold of the vacant crown of France. The late Emperor had it set in the imperial diadem.[B] It is a thick, square-proportioned diamond about the size of a Claude plum with a very large top surface, technically the table, and it gives forth even in daylight the most vivid rays. One authority on precious stones observes that the Regent is not cut to rule, being too thick for its size, but he quaintly remarks that such a diamond is above law. The Regent may do as it likes, but smaller stones should beware how they imitate peculiarities which in them would be called defects.
On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 the Regent and its glittering companions in glory were safely lodged in a sea-girt fortress. But Napoleon never returned to redeem them.
From the day when this peerless diamond first came to France it has always been a sovereign gem in the strictest sense of the term. It has never been used to adorn any one but the reigning monarch, and has never condescended to deck the brow of a woman.
During the present Republic the Regent has dwelt somewhat in obscurity. It lies snugly put away along with the other crown jewels in the vaults of the Ministère des Finances. But when the Chamber some two years since decreed that crown jewels should be sold by auction, they exempted the Regent. Republican France will not sell the Regent. This is a very remarkable fact, and would have eased the mind of the old Duke of Orleans could he have foreseen it. This sparkling gem, which he dreaded to buy fearing the censure of his people, has now sunk so deeply into their affections that even after the final extinction of the race of Bourbons which it was bought to adorn, the same people, now being sovereign, cannot bring themselves to part with it.
II.
THE ORLOFF.
"Diamonds," says an old writer, "have ever been highly valued by princes. To a sovereign," he argues, "who can command the lives and property of his subjects by a word, the ordinary objects of human desire soon lose that stimulating interest which rarity of occurrence and difficulty of acquisition can alone keep. The gratification of the senses and of unrestricted sway soon palls upon the appetite, and War and Diamonds are the only objects that engross the attention; the former because it is attended with some hazard and is the only kind of gambling in which the stake is sufficiently exciting to banish the ennui of an illiterate despot; the latter because the excessive rarity of large and at the same time perfect specimens of this gem supplies a perpetual object of desire while each new acquisition feeds the complacent vanity of the possessor."
According to this philosophy we should expect to find that the most despotic princes would be the most addicted to the vanities of War and Diamonds. Whether this conclusion be true as regards war may be open to doubt. Russia, without contention, is the most despotic monarchy of Europe, and yet the one which can show the shortest list of wars. With regard to diamonds, however, the deduction holds in all its force. The Russian regalia is richer in precious stones than that of any other Asiatic country. Besides numberless sapphires, rubies and pearls it possesses an immense quantity of diamonds.
This passion for gems which characterizes the Russians was early observable among them. It is no doubt an inherited Asiatic taste, brought with them from the steppes of Siberia and the plains of Thibet, just as they brought thence their high cheek-bones, their flat noses, their dull skins, and the strong tendency to long hair and flowing beards.
As early as the time of Peter the Great the diamonds were a notable feature of the Russian crown. But it was in the reign of Catharine II. that the most splendid gems which Russia now possesses were added to her treasures. First and foremost stands the Orloff. With the exception of the very dubious Braganza of Portugal the Orloff is the largest diamond in Europe. It outweighs the Regent by more than half a hundred carats, reaching as it does the astonishing weight of one hundred and ninety-three carats.
The origin of this gem is absolutely lost and its early history is involved in obscurity and contradiction. It appears a stone of ancient date. It was known in India for generations before it was transferred to Europe. Three Fates—a slave, a ship captain, and a Jew—seem destined to preside over the advent of each great diamond into our Western world. Nor were they wanting in this instance—except that a soldier was substitute for the slave.
The date, however, is not so easy to discover as the circumstances of its entrance into European history. It was, at all events, at some time prior to 1776 that a grenadier belonging to the French army which garrisoned the French possessions of Pondicherry deserted from his flag and became a Hindoo. This conversion was not the result of deep inward conviction, but of far-sighted craft. The Frenchman had heard of the great Sringerī-matha, the most holy spot in all Mysore. This temple, situated on an island at the junction of the Cavery and the Coleroon, was one of four especially sanctified monasteries founded in the eighth century by Sankarācárya. This man, a strict Brahmin, restored the glories of the old religion somewhat dimmed by Buddhism, and planted a monastery in each of the four extremities of India to keep alive the faith of Brahma. The one at Srirangam was noted, and the resort of pilgrims. It consisted of seven distinct inclosures, many lofty towers, and a gilded cupola, besides which it was furnished with a perfect undergrowth of dwellings for the many Brahmins who served at the altar.
Now the object of the grenadier's metamorphosis was that he might be received into these sacred precincts and become a priest of Brahma. And why? Because Brahma had a diamond eye. As the French historian puts it, "the soldier had become enamored of the beautiful eyes of the deity." European heretics were not allowed to penetrate further than the fourth inclosure. If the grenadier was to gaze at the eye of the god it must be as a Hindoo.
Being, then, externally a Hindoo, the Frenchman proceeded to gain the confidence, and even the admiration of the priests by the extraordinary fervor of his devotion. The ruse succeeded, and he was eventually appointed guardian of the innermost shrine.
One night, on the occasion of a great storm, the Hindoo-grenadier believed the moment propitious for his grand enterprise. Being alone with the god he threw off his disguise, climbed up the statue, gouged out the Wonderful Eye, and made off with it to Trichinopoly.
Here he was safe for the moment among the English troops encamped at that place. But soon he journeyed on to Madras in search of a purchaser for the Eye. He of course met an English sea-captain, the middle figure of the indispensable trio of Fates, and to him the grenadier sold the diamond for two thousand pounds ($10,000). After this the grenadier falls back into obscurity.
The sea-captain went to London and there speedily fell in with the Jew, the third Fate. The name of this Fate was Khojeh Raphael, and his character was that of "a complete old scoundrel." He seems to have traveled all over Europe in his character of Jew and merchant and to have left a not altogether immaculate record of himself. Khojeh Raphael paid twelve thousand pounds ($60,000) for the stone and then in his turn set about hunting up a purchaser. But this proved no easy matter. The splendid Catharine of Russia,