This is the last adventure that the Black Prince's Ruby has met with, and when we last looked upon it peacefully glistening in the sunlight it seemed hard to imagine that it had passed through so many dangers by fire and sword and had looked down on so many great scenes of royal splendor. VIII. THE SANCI. The diamond which is known as "the Sanci," or, as it is sometimes written, "Sancy," has been not inaptly termed a Sphinx among stones. Until recently writers have been accustomed to begin the story of this diamond with Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy and, with numerous variations of detail, to derive it from him. Now Charles the Bold had three diamonds which were famous throughout Europe as well for their size as for the fact that they were cut by a European lapidary. Louis de Berquen, who flourished in the fifteenth century, discovered by chance the true principle of diamond-cutting. He rubbed two diamonds together and found that one would bite upon the other, and that a high polish could thus be effected. The Duke confided his three great diamonds to the hands of this cutter and was so delighted with the result that he rewarded the clever lapidary with three thousand ducats. Of the diamonds thus cut, one was presented to Pope Sixtus IV. and another to Louis XI. of France. This latter diamond was set heart-shaped in a ring between clasped hands, a symbol of truth and faithfulness, and as such was a singularly inappropriate gift to one of the most perfidious monarchs who ever sat on a throne. The third stone the Duke kept for himself and wore it on his finger. This is the one writers have been pleased to call the Sanci, but they agree in no other detail of its history. The description of the Sanci--an almond-shaped stone covered all over with facets--does not agree with the description of the Duke's diamond; but this awkward fact has been easily got over by not mentioning it. Still on making the Sanci belong to Charles the Bold a history had to be furnished for it. Accordingly we learn that it was lost at the battle of Morat in 1476--and also at Nancy in the following year; that it was found by a Swiss soldier under a cart--and that it was taken from the frozen finger of the corpse of Charles; that it was sold for two francs to a priest--and that it was sold to a French nobleman; and so on through a maze of absurdity and contradiction. The diamond known as the Sanci and once an ornament of the crown of France never belonged to Charles the Bold. It is an Indian-cut diamond, and it was first brought to Western Europe in the reign of Henry III. of France by his ambassador at Constantinople, the Seigneur de Sanci. This person deserves a word or two.