Part 7 (1/2)
It has been thought advisable to give in detail the story of de Sanci's valet and the diamond because the adventure is usually attributed to the diamond which forms the subject of this article. Upon careful examination it has appeared to us probable that it really happened to the diamond bought from Dom Antonio and that this diamond was a distinct stone from the Sanci proper. Both gems however seem to have had the same fortunes and their histories for a century and a half run in parallel lines.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SANCI: TOP AND SIDE VIEWS.]
De Sanci, whose extravagance was unbounded, gradually became embarra.s.sed and from time to time no doubt disposed of his gems in order to raise money. The date of the purchase of the Sanci is fixed about 1595, when Elizabeth who was inordinately fond of jewels added it to the Crown of England. In 1605, Sully received an order from Henry IV. to buy up all the jewels of Monsieur de Sanci, whose affairs had come to a crisis.
Neither the Sanci nor the Portuguese diamond were among these valuables thus bought in for Henry.
In the reign of James I. of England there appears amongst his Majesty's personal jewels one of particular note called the ”Portugal” whose name does not appear in previous inventories of the English jewels, and this we are inclined to believe was the diamond which de Sanci purchased from Dom Antonio, and which had so many adventures. In the absence of direct proof however this identification should be accepted only provisionally.
Shortly after his accession James caused a number of jewels to be reset, and one ornament, known as the ”Mirror of Great Britain,” was considered to be the master-piece.
It is thus described in the official inventory of 1605:
”A greate and riche jewell of golde, called the Myrror of Greate Brytagne, contayninge one verie fayre table diamonde, one verie fayre table rubye, twoe other lardge dyamondes cut lozengewyse, the one of them called the stone of the letter H of Scotlande garnyshed wyth small dyamondes, twoe rounde perles fixed, and one fayre dyamonde cutt in fawcettes bought of Sancey.”
That this was the diamond subsequently known as the Sanci there can be no doubt. The description ”cut in facets” almost establishes the fact without the mention of the name of its recent owner.
The diamond called the ”Stone of the letter H” belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and was greatly valued by her. It was a present from Henry VIII. to his sister Margaret on her marriage with James IV. of Scotland.
In her will the Queen of Scots bequeaths it to the Crown, declaring that it should belong to the Queen's successors, but should not be alienated.
When in 1623 Charles, the Prince of Wales, went on his love-trip to Madrid along with Buckingham to woo the Infanta, he had an enormous amount of jewels sent out to him in order to make friends for himself at court. As was already mentioned in the paper about the Pelegrina, these magnificent gifts were valued at no less a figure than one and a half millions of dollars. Buckingham, who did not lack for audacity, had the impudence to write to King James asking for the ”Portugal” itself; but the over-indulgent monarch, though he scarcely ever refused anything to his beloved favorite, did not comply with this request. The Spanish marriage fell through, and Charles and Buckingham returned to England.
A couple of years afterwards, Charles being King, the stately Duke was sent to Paris to bring back the king's bride, Henrietta. On this occasion Buckingham seems to have exceeded himself in splendor. He was provided, says Madame de Motteville, with all the diamonds of the Crown and used them to deck himself. Possibly this may be merely an expression to indicate the profusion of Buckingham's jewels, and diamonds should not be read literally. Be this as it may, it is a fact that the Duke appeared at a ball at the Louvre in a suit of uncut white velvet, sewn all over with diamonds. These diamonds moreover, were sewn on very loosely, so that whenever the wearer pa.s.sed a group of ladies he particularly wished to honor, he shook himself, and a few of the diamonds fell off. This senseless extravagance was resorted to in rivalry of the Duke of Chevreuse, the most profuse of the French n.o.bles, who at the ceremony of the betrothal had appeared in a suit embroidered with pearls and diamonds, it being contrary to a sumptuary law to embroider with gold or silver.
Charles did not long enjoy the tranquil possession of his diamonds. By 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 pa.s.sages. Thus, when writing of diamonds he a.s.sumes a critical att.i.tude 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sembly 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.