Stories About Famous Precious StonesOrpen, Adela E. (Adela Elizabeth Richards)
History
Stories About Famous Precious Stones
Orpen, Adela E. (Adela Elizabeth Richards)
Gems
Four years later the Sanci went to law. Prince Demidoff, it seems,
agreed to sell it to a Monsieur Levrat, director of Forges and Mines in
the Grisons, for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and Monsieur
Levrat agreed to pay the price. Afterwards he contended that the diamond
had been spoiled by being re-cut, which was very likely, and that it was
worth only twenty-five thousand dollars. To this remarkable reduction in
price Prince Demidoff seems to have assented, and he delivered over the
stone to Monsieur Levrat who was to pay by instalments. Instead of
paying, he pawned the stone, and the defrauded Prince sued him, won his
case, and got back the diamond. This was all the more lucky for the
Demidoffs, since in 1865 they were able to sell it for one hundred
thousand dollars.
While in the hands of Prince Demidoff the Sanci is reported to have had
some strange adventures of which the following is an example:
It was in the shawl of the Princess one day, when, finding it hot, she
handed the shawl to a friend to carry for her. The friend was a very
absent-minded scientific personage; he put the Sanci pin into his
waistcoat pocket for safety and forgot all about it when returning the
shawl to the Princess. She forgot the pin also (a likely incident this).
Next day the Sanci was missing. Consternation! Scientific friend
hurriedly interviewed. He remembered the incident. Where was the
waistcoat? Gone to the wash (of course). O, horror! Washerwoman
frantically sought. Where was the waistcoat?--in the tub? Was there
anything found in the pocket? Yes; a glass pin. Where was it? Had given
it to her little boy to play with (of course). Where was the boy?
Playing in the gutter! Despair! The little fable ends nicely, as a
little fable should, and there is joy all around.
The person who gave the Demidoffs one hundred thousand dollars for the
Sanci was Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy the great Bombay merchant and
millionaire. And thus after many wanderings the Sanci at length returned
to the Orient whence, to judge from its cutting, it had originally come.
However its stay in India was but brief. It came back to Paris for the
Exhibition of 1867, where it found itself once more beneath the same
roof as the Regent. It was nevertheless not in the same show-case as
that imperial exhibit, for it belonged to Messrs. Bapst who were willing
to sell it for the sum of one million of francs, the exact amount at
which it had been valued previous to the Revolution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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