Hungary’s great hero, John Hunyady (1387?-1456), had in his coat of arms a raven holding a ring in its beak. The legendary explanation of this is that King Sigismund once gave a ring to his mistress, the hero’s mother, as a passport for entrance to the court. One day the royal parent wished to see his offspring, and the child’s uncle received orders to bring it to the court. On his way thither, while traversing a piece of woodland, the man came to a clearing and sat down on the grass to repose himself, giving the precious ring, his token to the king, to the child as a plaything. Suddenly a raven swooped down from a tree, picked up the ring and flew away with it; but the man caught up a bow he had with him and sped a shaft after the bird, which fell dead to the ground with the ring still tightly held in its beak. When, in later years, the illegitimate child grew up and finally ascended the throne of Hungary, this event was figured on his coat of arms by the emblems of the raven and the ring.[285] When the Constable Louis of Luxembourg was condemned to death in 1475, in the reign of Louis XI of France, he drew from his finger a small gold ring set with a diamond and requested the father confessor to offer it to the image of Our Lady of Paris. Then, turning to the Franciscan monk, Jean de Sordun, he said: “Here is a stone I have long worn on my neck and which I have greatly prized, for it resists poison, and also protects against pestilence. I pray you to take this stone for me to my son, to whom you will say that I beg him to keep it for love of me.” This touching mission was never fulfilled, for after the execution of the Constable, the court ordered that the stone should be given to King Louis. The diamond ring, however, was duly dedicated to the image of the Virgin.[286] Of Louis XI himself, the chronicler quaintly says: “Before his death he suffered much from various diseases for the cure of which the physicians who attended him concocted dreadful and wonderful medicines. May these illnesses procure the salvation of his soul!”[287] Some interesting historic rings are in the fine collection of Dr. Albert Figdor, Vienna. One of them is a gold ring believed to have belonged to Mary of Burgundy, (d. 1482) daughter of Charles the Bold, and wife of Maximilian I of Germany. On the ring is the letter M formed of black diamonds, and the monogram of the name Maria, in Gothic characters, appears twice on its inner side. Two enameled gold rings of Empress Eleonora, third wife of Ferdinand III of Germany (1608–1657), are good examples of seventeenth century work. More interesting is a ring bearing miniature portraits of Emperor Mathias of Germany (1557–1619) and his wife Empress Anne.[288] The first historical instance of writing with a diamond point concerns Francis I, who wrote, with the diamond of his ring, upon a pane of glass in the Castle of Chambord, the following oft-quoted lines: Souvent femme varie, Mal habile qui s’y fie.