Part 2 (2/2)
”The King (Philip IV.) had on a gray coat with silver embroidery: a great table diamond fastened up his hat from which hung a pearl.
They are two crown jewels of extreme beauty--they call the diamond the Mirror of Portugal, and the pearl the Pelegrina.”
On this occasion the two courts of Versailles and Madrid vied with each other in splendor, and their doings have rendered famous the little boundary river of the Bida.s.soa with its Isle of the Pheasant. A modern traveler whisking past in the train sees but little to recall the once famous spot; a half dried-up river and a marshy reed-covered swamp are all that now remain. The island is gone, so also are the royal houses whose meeting there was so great an event.
There is one occasion upon which the Pelegrina served to deck a bride so young and fair that it deserves more than a pa.s.sing notice. The bride was Marie Louise d'Orleans, the first wife of Charles II. This poor sickly King, the last descendant of the mighty Charles V., was a very shy boy and extremely averse to the society of women. When he was about seventeen his mother and the royal council decided that he must be married, and they cast their eyes upon the neighboring house of France, into which Spanish monarchs were in the habit of marrying when not engaged with it in war. The only suitable lady was ”Mademoiselle”--for such was in ancient France the distinctive t.i.tle of the eldest niece of the King. Mademoiselle, besides being niece to Louis XIV., was furthermore pretty, vivacious, and only sixteen. Her portrait was sent to Spain, and what was the amazement of the court to see the shy young king, who could scarcely look a woman in the face, fall violently in love with this portrait. He kept it always beside him and was observed frequently to address the tenderest expressions to it.
Such being the satisfactory state of the King's feelings the match was rapidly concluded, and Marie Louise set out from Versailles to go to her unknown husband. On his side Charles II. went forward to meet her as far as Burgos, and there they first saw each other in 1679. When the King was unexpectedly announced, Mademoiselle was observed to blush and look agitated which made her all the prettier. As Charles entered her apartment she advanced in order to kneel at his feet, but the Boy-King caught her by both arms and gazing at her with delight cried, ”My Queen, my Queen!”
Although she arrived in Madrid in the autumn of 1679, the young Queen did not make her state-entry into her capital until the following January. In the meantime she was kept in the closest seclusion. Not all the power of the King of Spain joined to the love which Charles bore to his wife was sufficient to break down the adamantine wall of etiquette which long usage had built around the queens of Spain. Like a Moorish slave in a harem, the gay young French girl was shut up alone with her Lady of the Bedchamber and was permitted to see no one except the King.
She was not allowed to write to her own family nor receive their letters. She was even refused permission to read a letter from Paris which a compa.s.sionate friend sent her in order that she might hear a little news. She was a prisoner indeed, although the prison was gilded.
It needed something to atone for two months of such a life, and if a grand display could sweep away the recollection of it that consolation was not withheld.
On January 13, 1680, the Bride-Queen at last entered Madrid. Madame la Mothe, whose keen French eyes saw everything and whose sharp French pen chronicled it, has left a minute account of the ceremony. She says:
”The Queen rode upon a curious Andalusian horse which the Marquis de Villa Magna, her first gentleman-usher, led by the rein. Her clothes were so richly embroidered that one could see no stuff; she wore a hat trimmed with a plume of feathers and the pearl called the Pelegrina which is as big as a small pear and of inestimable value, her hair hung loose upon her shoulders, and upon her forehead. Her neck was a little bare and she wore a small farthingale; she had upon her finger the large diamond of the king's, which is pretended to be the finest in Europe. But the Queen's pretty looks showed brighter than all her sparkling jewels.”
There is a picture still extant of this queen which proves her to have been pretty in spite of the disfigurement effected by some of her sparkling jewels. Madame la Mothe does not mention what the picture shows, namely, that the Queen's ears were weighted down by a pair of ornaments as large as saucers which the Queen-mother had presented to her. Above the ear-rings moreover were a pair of huge jewelled rosettes fastened to the hair in such a way as to make one almost fancy that the ears were being dragged out by their enormous pendants and had to be nailed up by the rosettes.
Marie Louise lived but a few years to enjoy the love of her husband and the splendor of her rank. It was said that she died of a broken heart caused by the torments of court jealousies and intrigues against which the King, her husband, in vain tried to s.h.i.+eld her.
Charles II. died in 1705, and being childless he bequeathed his crown to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. and cousin to the wife of his youth whose memory was still dear to him. Of course other claimants arose to grasp so splendid an inheritance, so that the funeral torches of Charles may be said to have set fire to Europe. At all events, a vast conflagration soon burst forth known as the War of the Spanish Succession, which included ere long within its fiery embrace Spain, France, England. Austria, Italy, Germany and Holland. After all their fighting however Philip still remained King of Spain, and the house which he founded is now, in the person of the Baby-King of Spain, the last reigning example of that mighty tribe of Bourbons which at one time ruled over so large a portion of Europe.
During the first years of his reign Philip V. had to fight for his throne, nor was he invariably successful. At one time he was so hard-pressed by his rival, the Archduke Charles, that he had almost to seek rufuge in France. By the urgent entreaty of his ministers the King and Queen did not actually quit the soil of Spain, but the Pelegrina did do so. The invaluable pearl, along with the rest of the crown jewels, was entrusted to a French valet named Susa, who crossed over the frontier into France, kept his treasures safe until the danger was pa.s.sed, and then when the tide of success began to flow for Philip brought them back again to Madrid.
This is the last authentic appearance of the Pelegrina in Spanish history. After this date, 1707, its story becomes confused and oftentimes contradictory. It is alleged to have been given first to one favorite and then to another, while finally as a climax of confusion another pearl in Spain, one in Sardinia, and one in Moscow, impudently a.s.sume its name and masquerade as the true and veritable Pelegrina.
Our own inquiries both in Madrid and St. Petersburg have failed to supply the links that are missing in its history. We cannot say when it finally pa.s.sed away from the crown of Spain, for there have been many clearances of the royal jewels to meet the exigencies of various kings.
At all events, for the last thirty years it has been in the hands of a Russian family. The Oussoupoffs belong to the ancient n.o.bility and they are extremely wealthy; but how and when the Princess Oussoupoff became possessed of the Pelegrina we do not pretend to say. The friend who made the inquiries for us said significantly that it was impossible to ask many questions in Russia. Questions, however innocent, are looked upon with great suspicion and any questioner is liable to repent of his inquisitiveness. It is a pity that so historic a gem as the Pelegrina should be practically lost to us in a Russian lady's jewel casket. Any other large pearl would have served her purpose equally well for mere ornament, and had the Pelegrina remained in Western Europe we should probably know something more about it or at all events we should be able to ask what questions we like without incurring the suspicion of treason and of being desirous of hurling the Romanoffs from their throne.
IV.
THE KOH-I-NUR.
The Koh-i-nur is the most ancient, the most ill.u.s.trious, and the most traveled of all our diamonds. It is what is called a white diamond, but its color would be of the deepest crimson, if only one thousandth part of the blood which has been shed for it could have tinted its rays. It looms through the mist of ages until the mind refuses to trace further backwards its nebulous career.
It is to an emperor that we owe the first contemporary account of the imperial gem. In 1526 Baber, the Mogul conqueror, speaks of it as among the captured treasures of Delhi. But that was by no means the first time that it mingled in the affairs of men. It was already ”the famous diamond” in Baber's time, and a wild tradition would have us believe that it was found no less than five thousand years ago. If it were found then, and if it has been ever since the contested prize of adventurers, thieves and all sorts of marauders, we cannot be too thankful that forty-seven of those fifty centuries are mercifully hidden from us.
Sultan Baber was a great man, a mighty conqueror and a good writer. He has left full and minute journals of his long adventurous life, which take the panting reader through such a series of battles, sieges, conquests, defeats, royal pageants and hair-breadth escapes, that at last one cries out with wonder, ”Can this man have been mortal to have lived through all this?”
Baber came from good old conquering stock. His father was sixth in descent from Tamerlane the Tartar, and his mother stood somewhat nearer to Jenghis Khan. Following in the footsteps of his fierce ancestors, Baber invaded India, or as he himself complacently remarks: ”he put his foot in the stirrup of resolution and went against the Emperor Ibrahim.” Rus.h.i.+ng down like a devastating whirlwind from his mountain fastnesses around Cabul, Baber fell upon the Punjaub, first striking down all that opposed him and then writing about it in his Memoirs.
On the twenty-first of April, 1526, he encountered the army of Ibrahim on the field of Paniput. ”The sun was spear-high when the contest began, and at midday they were completely beaten and my men were exulting in victory,” says Baber. The Indian emperor was killed and his head was brought to the victorious Mogul. Immediately after the battle, the conqueror sent forward two flying squadrons to Agra and Delhi respectively to seize the treasures of the fallen king. The troop which went to Agra was commanded by Humayun, the favorite son of Baber. It is with this troop and its doings that we are concerned, but what was found in the Hindoo treasury had best be told by the conqueror himself:
”Sultan Sekandar had made Agra his residence during several years while he was endeavoring to reduce Gwalior. That stronghold was at length gained by capitulation in the reign of Ibrahim: Shemsabad being given in exchange to Bikermajet the Hindoo who was Rajah of Gwalior for more than a hundred years.[D] In the battle of Paniput he was sent to h.e.l.l. [Incisive Mohammedan expression which signifies the death of an unbeliever.] When Humayun arrived (at Agra) Bikermajet's people attempted to escape, but were taken by the parties which Humayun had placed upon the watch and put in custody. Humayun did not permit them to be plundered. Of their own free will they presented to Humayun a _pesh kesh_ (tribute) consisting of a quant.i.ty of jewels and precious stones. Among these was _one famous diamond_ which had been acquired by the Sultan Ala-ed-din.”
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