THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS.
According to a contemporary, we learn that the French crown jewels when valued just after the Revolution of 1789 were estimated at eight hundred and forty thousand pounds, and they consisted of seven thousand four hundred and eighty-two diamonds, five hundred and six pearls, two hundred and thirty rubies, one hundred and fifty emeralds, one hundred and thirty-four sapphires, seventy-one topazes, eight garnets, and three amethysts. They were stolen from the Treasury, in which they had been deposited, and only a very small portion recovered; but the purchases made by Napoleon and the Bourbon kings brought the total of the crown jewels up to nine hundred thousand pounds when they were valued in 1832. When a fresh inventory was taken in 1875, it was found that the crown jewels consisted of seventy-seven thousand four hundred and eighty-six stones, weighing over nineteen thousand carats, and a part of these will shortly be sold. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that at the impending sale all the objects of historical interest will be reserved, for many of the jewels which belonged to the Duchess Anne of Brittany, and became an appanage of the French Crown when she married Charles VIII., are to be disposed of, as also several articles bequeathed by Cardinal Richelieu.