Stories About the Celebrated Sanci Diamond

Several stories are told of the SANCI diamond celebrated for its rare beauty and size, weighing 33 12/16 carats, and for a long time an ornament of the French crown. According to one account it was brought from Constantinople by an ambassador of the name of Sanci, who purchased it there for an enormous sum. Another story states that it formerly belonged to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who wore it in his hat at the battle of Morat, in 1476. Being defeated with the loss of all his baggage, the jewel was found by a Swiss soldier on the field of battle, who sold it to a French gentleman of the name of Sanci. In this family the diamond remained for nearly a century, until Henry III. commissioned a descendant of the purchaser, a captain in the royal service, to raise recruits in Switzerland. Driven from the throne by his subjects, the monarch, without money to pay his troops, borrowed the Sanci diamond in order to pawn it to the Swiss. Sanci entrusted it to one of his servants, who disappeared no one could tell whither. The king reproached Sanci bitterly for having confided an object of such value to a valet; but Sanci, full of confidence in his servant, set out in search, and discovered that the man had been attacked by robbers, and that the body was buried in a neighbouring forest. Thither he went, ordered the body to be disinterred and opened, when the diamond was discovered in his stomach--the faithful servant having swallowed it to prevent theft.

Commines in his "Memoirs" describes the diamond as the "largest one then in the world, having an immense pearl attached to it." He states that the diamond was picked up by a Swiss after the battle of Nancy, and sold afterwards to a priest for a florin, who again resold it for three francs. Nicolas de Harlai, Lord of Sanci, celebrated in the reigns of Henry II. and IV., "bought it of Don Antonia, prior of Crats."

Another statement is that this diamond came into the possession of the English crown. It is mentioned in a letter from Queen Henrietta Maria, when in exile, in connection with a gift of jewels to the Marquis of Worcester, who owed his ruin to his loyalty to Charles I.

The letter, or testimonial, accompanying the gift was in French: "We, Henrietta Maria of Bourbon, Queen of Great Britain, have, by order of the king, our very honoured lord and master, caused to be delivered into the hands of our dear and well-beloved cousin, Edward Somerset, Count and Earl of Worcester, a necklace of rubies, containing ten large rubies and one hundred and sixty pearls, set and strung together in gold. Among the said rubies are likewise two large diamonds, called the Sanci and the Portugal," etc.

James II. is said to have bought the former from the Baron de Sanci, while living at St. Germain.

According to another writer, this diamond afterwards came into the possession of Louis XIV., who is stated to have given James II. for it 625,000 francs (25,000 pound). His successor had it placed in the crown used at his coronation. It remained among the crown jewels of France until the revolution of 1792, when it disappeared. In 1830 and 1831 the diamond was in the hands of a French merchant, and in 1832 it was the occasion of a process which was pleaded at the Tribunal; the case was M. Demidoff against M. Levrat. The principal facts were that the latter (a managing director of the Society of Mines and Forges of the Grisons, Switzerland) purchased it from M. Demidoff for 600,000 francs, but it was not worth more than 145,800 francs, since it had lost a portion of its weight from being cut as a brilliant. This price was stipulated to be paid in three sums at six months' interval, and as a guarantee for the execution of the agreement M. Levrat placed in the hands of the seller two hundred shares in the society he represented. The first term of payment becoming due, M. Levrat could not meet it, and M. Demidoff demanded the cancelling of the sale, not having been paid for it, and the restitution of the Sanci diamond which M. Levrat had placed at the Mont de Piete. M. Demidoff was authorized to withdraw the diamond on being accountable to that establishment for the expenses attending the placing of it there. M. Levrat was condemned to pay the costs of the trial.

In 1835 this diamond came into the possession of M. Paul Demidoff, grand huntsman to the Emperor of Russia. In the following year it was sent to Paris for sale, and on being weighed was found to be fifty-three carats. It came into the possession of Charles I., and is said to have been given by that monarch, on the scaffold, to Bishop Juxon for his son, Charles II.

To crown the vicissitudes of this mythical gem, another statement relates that it was purchased of the Demidoff family (February, 1865) for the sum of pound 20,000, on the commission of Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, of Bombay, by Messrs. Garrard.