The Nassuck Diamond, valued at thirty thousand pounds, is a magnificent jewel, nearly as large as a common walnut. Pure as a drop of dew, it ranked among the richest treasures in the British conquest of India.
What has become of the great triangular Blue Diamond, weighing sixty-seven carats, stolen from the French Court at the time of the great robbery of the crown-jewels? Alas! it has never been heard from. Three millions of francs represented its value; and no one, to this day, knows its hiding-place. What a pleasant morning's work it would be to unearth this gem from its dark corner, where it has lain perdu so many years! The bells of Notre Dame should proclaim such good-fortune to all Paris.
But enough of these individual magnificos. Their beauty and rarity have attracted sufficient attention in their day. Yet we should like to handle a few of those Spanish splendors which Queen Isabel II. wore at the reception of the ambassadors from Morocco. That day she shone in diamonds alone to the amount of two million dollars! We once saw a monarch's sword, of which
"The jewelled hilt,
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,"
was valued at one hundred thousand dollars! But one of the pleasantest of our personal remembrances, connected with diamonds, is the picking up of a fine, lustrous gem which fell from O.B.'s violin-bow, (the gift of the Duke of Devonshire,) one night, after he had been playing his magic instrument for the special delight of a few friends. The tall Norwegian wrapped it in a bit of newspaper, when it was restored to him, and thrust it into his cigar-box! [O.B. sometimes carried his treasures in strange places. One day he was lamenting the loss of a large sum of money which he had received as the proceeds of a concert in New York. A week afterwards he found his missing nine hundred dollars stuffed away in a dark corner of one of his violin-cases.]
There is a very pretty diamond-story current in connection with the good
Empress Eugénie. Madame de Barrera relates it in this wise.
"When the sovereign of France marries, by virtue of an ancient custom kept up to the present day, the bride is presented by the city of Paris with a valuable gift. Another is also offered at the birth of the first-born.
"In 1853, when the choice of His Majesty Napoleon III. raised the
Empress Eugénie to the throne, the city of Paris, represented by the
Municipal Commission, voted the sum of six hundred thousand francs for
the purchase of a diamond necklace to be presented to Her Majesty.
"The news caused quite a sensation among the jewellers. Each was eager to contribute his finest gems to form the Empress's necklace,—a necklace which was to make its appearance under auspices as favorable as those of the famous Queen's Necklace had been unpropitious. But on the 28th of January, two days after the vote of the Municipal Commission, all this zeal was disappointed; the young Empress having expressed a wish that the six hundred thousand francs should be used for the foundation of an educational institution for poor young girls of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
"The wish has been realized, and, thanks to the beneficent fairy in whose compassionate heart it had its origin, the diamond necklace has been metamorphosed into an elegant edifice, with charming gardens. Here a hundred and fifty young girls, at first, but now as many as four hundred, have been placed, and receive, under the management of those angels of charity called the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, an excellent education proportioned to their station, and fitting them to be useful members of society.