About the Favorite Gems of Distinguished People In History

Sentiment occupies a high place in the values of gems, and it has been, to a con-siderable extent, created by the historical or traditional association of different gems with royal personages and people otherwise famous; the favour of the great has sometimes had an important effect upon the market value of precious stones, and in some cases good or ill fortune has passed with gems from one possessor to another, until to the inanimate jewel has attached the credit or discredit of causing remarkable human experiences, and the stone has acquired the attribute of lucky or unlucky. The diamond fills the leading role in this historical and legendary drama of the gems, and a full account of all pertaining to it that is worthy of notice, that is extant in print, might suffice for a volume of considerable interest.

Charlemagne fastened his mantle with a clasp set with diamonds; these historic stones illustrate the crude efforts of the lapidaries of their time, the natural planes of the octahedron being only partly polished.

Louis Duke of Anjou possessed a regal array of jewels; in an inventory of his gems exhibited 1360-1368 was a description of eight diamonds which showed some skill on the part of their cutters.

When the Duke of Burgundy, in 1407, gave a magnificent banquet to the King of France and his Court, the noble guests received as souvenirs of the entertainment eleven diamonds, cut with as much skill as the art of that day was capable of, and set in gold.

Pope Sixtus IV. was the recipient of the second diamond sent to be cut, in 1475, by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to Louis de Berquem of Bruges--regarded by his contemporaries as the father of diamond-cutting. The first of the trio of famous stones is said to have been the historic "Beau Sancy"; the third diamond was presented to Louis XI. of France.

"The Twelve Mazarins" were the twelve thickest diamonds of the French crown jewels, ordered by Cardinal Mazarin to be recut by Parisian cutters.

Pope Julius II., in 1500, owned a diamond on which was engraved the figure of a friar by one Ambrosius Caradossa; this is one of the few noted examples of diamond sculpture.

The first French woman to lead fashion as a wearer of diamonds for personal ornaments is said to have been Agnes Sorrel, famous in the time of Charles VII. Subsequently, under Francis I., extravagance in this particular in French society reached its climax, and the Luxus or Sumptuary Laws, in the reign of Charles IX. and Henry IV., were drafted to repress this form of extravagance.

The late Earl Dudley owned one of the several large and world-famous diamonds emanating from the diamond mines of South Africa; this stone was first famous as "The Star of South Africa"; it was then the size of a small walnut, when in the rough, and weighed 831/2 carats; cutting reduced it to 461/2 carats.

The melodrama of gem history is contributed to by the record of Mohammed Ghori, the real founder of the Mohammedan dominion in India, whose death discovered in his treasury precious stones weighing four hundred pounds, including a great number of diamonds of vast but inestimable value; this hoard of mineral wealth, this enterprising disciple of Mahomet, it is said, acquired exclusively by plunder.

The famous "Eugenie" diamond purchased by the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III., was found by a poor peasant at Wajra Karur in India; the finder tendered the stone to the village blacksmith as compensation for repairing a plough; the smith threw it away, but upon reconsidering its possibilities recovered it and sold it for 6000 rupees to a merchant named Arathoon of Madras, who sold it to the French emperor for a great sum.

Senor S. I. Habid, a wealthy Spaniard of the rue Lafitte, Paris, proprietor of a collection of rare gems, is, according to information published in European and American newspapers during the spring of 1908, the possessor of the famous blue "Hope" diamond. For some time this celebrated stone was owned in America, the possessors being the firm of jewellers in New York City, Messrs. Joseph Frankel's Sons. The American owners admitted the sale of the stone in Paris, but declined to divulge the facts as to the price or the identity of the purchaser, stating that the information, if made public, must come from the purchaser. The Sultan of Turkey was for a time the reputed buyer. Mr. Edwin W. Streeter, who, partly by virtue of his authorship of The Great Diamonds of the World, is entitled to the distinction of the expert on this phase of precious stones, in his book Precious Stones and Gems, in a chapter entitled "Coloured Diamonds," traces a complete history of the "Hope" blue diamond. This author is inclined to identify this stone as a part of a blue diamond, bought in 1642 by Tavernier, the famous traveller and gem buyer, supposed to have been found in the old Indian mines, probably those of Gani-Color. It weighed in the rough 1121/4 carats; and in 1668 it was sold to Louis XIV. The present name of this diamond is derived from that of Mr. Henry Thomas Hope, a London banker, who bought it in 1830 for the equivalent in currency of the United States of about $85,000.

Among the notable coloured diamonds is the "Dresden green diamond," a fine flawless stone, of a bright apple-green colour. It is in the famous "Green Vaults" of Dresden, and has belonged to the Saxon crown since 1753. Augustus the Strong paid $60,000 for it. Forty carats is its weight.

Another famous forty-carat stone is the "Polar Star," a pure and brilliant diamond, the property of the Princess Yassopouff; it was purchased, prior to its present ownership, by the Emperor Paul of Russia for a large sum.

The Shah of Persia, whose reign has been lately troubled by revolting radicals in his domain, may find consolation in the possession of a vast treasure of jewels rare. These include two magnificent rose-cut stones, the "Daryai-nur," or "Sea of Light," which weighs 186 carats, and the "Taj-e-mah," or "Crown of the Moon," weighing 146 carats.