Evening star., 1921-08-21

u
| ~ through the streets of Paris.
There was not vehicle to
be had All the taxis and auto busses
were rushing soldiers to the battle Of
the Marne.
The enemy was laundering down upon
the capital.
The crown jewels must be taken out
of Paris.
The shabby valise stopped at a modest
fat. The director of national museums
handed it to the subsecretary Of state
! for BeauX Arts and took receipt.
Three days the shabby yalise stayed In
the modest f1at-untfl the Beaux arts
man could get a train for X. (The
| railroads were packed with arriving
| troops and fleeing Parisians.)
At X the Beaux Arts man took a
receipt re-, k ;G3sGure ; S,,ss,e ,esua % bank; bank;
sheltere1 ,tns . crown jewels perfectly
throughout the entire war-because no
body had an idea that they were there.
| Throughout the war they remained
there in the shabby valise-the most
precious jewels in the world by their
associations.
The Regents diamond-greatest of
jewels.
Uber allies! as the song says, uber
allies in der welt!
1
does not depend on their size and purity
alone, but on their history and adven-
| lures, and the personages who wore
| them, loved them, lost them, or COM
mitted crimes to win them.
The Regents diamond. nevertheless.
ranks also finest and most perfect IN
Europe as stone. 1t weighs 1877 carats.
| and its only superior in mere size, the
Orloff, 1874 carats, belonged to the Rus
| sian crown. and who knows where 1t
MI: IL - LtOv
! tine. 1873 carats. in the Austrian crown
! jewels. and who knows where it is?
The Koh-i-noor. of the British crown,
| weighs only 106 carats.. But think of
its name and story. and the name and
story of each of them.
! Now, in a trick box of the Louvre. 1t
| lies on pale mauve satin. the Regent s
diamond, often called the Pitt because
| it came to Europe in the pocket OF, Pitt.
! the English statesman. While governor
tanned it at Golconda. he claimed. from
one Jamelchund. Hindoo merchant, for
100000. These details Pitt gave out in
a pamphlet to mitigate the odium OF
other stories of the acquisition. summed
up in Pope's lines of the Man Of
/, Asleep and naked as the Indian lay:
An honest factor stole the gem away!
Pitt sold it nstch Sirtsheap Issent to the the
ten times it's present purchasing
value. Any price, today, would be a
fancy price; but it would fetch
S., ,000. 900, were it conceivably for
sale and anybody dared to buy it. 1t
might have been cn pr.t,ntious; ous,, ,or.o,.
were sold at auction in 1886, four
certain objects were withheld from bid
ding-the regent diamond, the great
ruby. the Mazarin diamond. and the
sword -hilt of Napoleon-as too precious
to be sold. and presumably too terrific
to be bought!
WHO owns a kingdoms crown
w jewels?
The king, you say, Of course, but
they're not his to burn. King Louis
vi let Nine. de Pompadour play that
regents gem was really hers, and
Marie Antoinette, being queen. knew
that the glorious piece of ice
was hers to wear: but both put it t
crown jewels fireproof safe as safest
there. One day. however. Louis XVI
took q paltry $175,000 worth of small
diamonds and rubies from the crown
junk. to pay certain debt OF Marie
Autoinette,. !. and it started the French
revolution
The, national assembly called it
stealing, and ordered all crown jew
els to be taken from the palace fire.
proof and deposited in the national
strong room-just pretext to insult the
king and to try their power.
In the national strong room the
Jewels were safe, what? Tut! tut!
Quite promptly and as famously, they
were stolen by the Mietto band.
How the king laughed, poor boob!
In the greatest police inquiry Of the
epoch, most Of the stolen jewels were
finally recovered. Ut has nothing to
do with the queens necklace story
except that her desire for q glorious
necklace of her very own. grew from
it, Only, the regent stone eluded
search; and at last it was found, in
the hands Of wineshop keeper, who
had bought 1t from a stranger for
$10! ,. =
In all probability both. this stone
and the koh-i-noor are portions of
the fabulous diamond belonging to the
grand mogul in 1926 & the greatest
ever known, IN size and beauty. It's
story went back, with the pageant Of
the hides, for 5000 years, to the mines
OF Goleonda; and it had been worn
by Karna, hero celebrated in the
Mahabharata!
Yet there. are men who, just to
have and wear 1t, would prefer the
Maxarin diamond. called the peach
blows although valued. merely - q