Instances are recorded in which the wearing of a ring has been the means
of saving life. Such happened to the Count de St. Pol at the battle of
Pavia. He had fallen covered with wounds; avarice recalled him to life. A
soldier, seeking for pillage, arrived at the place where the unfortunate
Count lay extended, senseless, among the dead. He perceived a very
beautiful diamond glitter on the finger of the apparently lifeless man.
Not being successful in drawing the ring off, he began to cut the finger.
The pain extorted a piercing cry from the Count, who had only swooned. He
mentioned his name, and had the presence of mind to recommend silence to
the soldier, telling him that if he boasted of having in his power a
prince of the house of France, the Emperor’s generals would take him into
their own hands in order to get his ransom; and he promised to make the
soldier’s fortune if he would take care of his wounds, and follow him to
France. This reasoning had its effect; the soldier secretly conveyed the
Prince to Pavia, had his wounds dressed, and was nobly rewarded for it.
Taylor, in his ‘Danger of Premature Interments’ (1816) relates the
following incident. The heroine of this event was named Retchmuth Adolet.
She was the wife of a merchant at Cologne, and is said to have died of the
plague, which destroyed a great part of the inhabitants of that city in
1571. She was speedily interred, and a ring of great value was suffered to
remain on her finger, which tempted the cupidity of the grave-digger. The
night was the time he had planned for obtaining possession of it. On going
to the grave, opening it, and attempting to take the ring from off the
finger of the lady, she came to herself, and so terrified the sacrilegious
thief, that he ran away and left his lantern behind him. The lady took
advantage of his fright, and with the assistance of his lantern, found her
way home, and lived to be the mother of three children. After her real
decease, she was buried near the door of the same church, and a tomb was
erected over her grave, upon which the incident related was engraved.
Mrs. Bray, in a notice of ‘Cotele,’ and ‘the Edgcumbes of the Olden Time’
(‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ November 1853), relates a singular circumstance
of this character, which ‘is so well authenticated, that not even a doubt
rests upon its truth.’ It refers to the mother of that Sir Richard
Edgcumbe, Knight, who, in 1748, was created Baron of Mount Edgcumbe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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