THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



current opinion regards it as tlie larger 

 half of Tavernier's Blue, which had 

 been cut, perhaps by Fals. What be- 

 came of the rest of the original stone 

 is uncertain. 



It descended to Lord Francis Hope, 

 who in 1894 married the well-known 

 actress. ]May Yolie. Their union was 

 not a happy one, for Lady Francis de- 

 serted her husband, who divorced her in 

 1902. In 1901 Lord Francis sold the 

 Hope to Lord Sholto Douglas, a mem- 

 ber of the ill-fated Quoensberry family, 

 who wanted it for his pretty wife, the 

 dancer, Loretta Mooney, whom he met 

 at a I'exan mining camp. But the new 

 owner did not have it long, for, ruined 

 by his wife's extravagance, he was 

 forced to sell the gem. It is not easy to 

 disentangle the threads of this fateful 

 diamond's history during the next few 

 years ; it comes to the surface now and 

 then as the temporary property of some 

 unfortunate, only to disapjiear again in 

 a cloud of rumour. It was owned for 

 a time by Jacques Colot, a Paris broker, 

 who became insane and shot himself. 

 The next owner seems to have been 

 Prince Kanitovsky, who lent it to 

 Loreus Ladne, a beautiful actress of the 

 Folies Hergeres — and shot her from a 

 box the first night she wore it. Then 

 it was owned by a Greek, Simon Mon- 

 tharides, and he, we are told, was thrown 

 over a precipice with his wife and chil- 

 dren and killed. It then came into the 

 possession of Abdul Hamid, Sultan of 

 Turkey, and continued its baleful career. 

 The Sultan's favourite, Salma Tubayba, 

 was wearing it on her breast when the 

 Young Turks broke into the palace, and 

 she was shot dead by her master, the 

 bullet narrowly missing the diamond. 

 Aljdul was deposed in April, 1909, and 

 the diamond apparently passed into the 

 possession of a dealer named Habib. He 

 sold it in Paris for £16,000 in June, 

 1909, and, in November of the same 

 year, he was drowned in the wreck of 

 the French liner La tSe//)ie. The ship's 

 safe was recovered by a diver, as it Avas 

 wrongly believed that the Hoj^e diamond 

 was still in Habib's possession. In 

 November, 1910, it was in America at 

 the New York branch of the French firm 

 of Cartier, who sold it to ]\Ir. Edward 



B. Maclean, of Wasliington, and it is 

 a])parontly still in his possession. The 

 new owner has not escaped the evil in- 

 tluence of the gem, for, shortly after it 

 came into his possession, his five-year- 

 old child, the "billion dollar baby," was 

 knocked down by a motor car and 

 killed. 



THE SAXCY. 



The history of this diamond is so con- 

 fused that it is difficult to separate fact 

 from legend. It was probably first 

 brought from the Orient by Nicholas 

 Harlai, Seigneur de Sancy, Ambassador 

 at the Ottoman Court, where he pur- 

 chased it about 1570. It is described as 

 originally almond shaped, facetted on 

 both sides, and its weight is given as 

 53| carats. From de Sancy the diamond 

 was borrowed oy Hemy 1 \' of France, 

 to enable him to raise money for the 

 hire of a body of Swiss mercenaries. 

 But the messenger carrying the gem to 

 the King disappeared, and, after some 

 time, it was discovered that he had been 

 waylaid and assassinated. De Sancy, 

 who had great confidence in the honesty 

 and resourcefulness of his emissary, pro- 

 ceeded to the scene of the crime, dis- 

 covered and disinterred the body, and 

 found the diamond in the stomach of his 

 faithful servitor, who had swallowed it 

 to prevent its falling into the hands of 

 the robbers. It was then sold to Queen 

 Elizabeth. somcAvhere between 1590 and 

 KiOO, and thus became for a time one of 

 tlie English Crown jewels. James II 

 sold it" for £25,000 to Louis XH' of 

 Fiance, about the year 1695. Louis 

 X\'. wore it as a hat ornament at his 

 coronation. It was stolen in 1792, but 

 turned up again in 1828, when it was 

 sold by a French merchant to Prince 

 Demidoff, of Eussia. In 1865 it was 

 purchased from the Demidoff family by 

 a London firm acting for Sir Jarasetjee 

 Jeejeebhoy, of I>oml)ay, and once more 

 returned to the land of its oi'igin. It 

 was again offered for sale in Paris in 

 1867, and wa-i buuglit l)y the Maharaja 

 of Patiala. On his death it resumed its 

 wanderings, and in 1906 it was reported 

 that William Waldorf Astor presented it 

 to JMrs. Langhorne Sliaw on the oc- 

 casion of her marriage to his son, Wal- 

 dorf. 



