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The Great Sancy: Demidoff

But here begin a fresh series of vicissitudes; for it disappeared the very next year, together with the "Blue Diamond," and the other valuables permanently lost to the nation at the robbery of the Garde Meuble. And now comes Barbot's positive assertion that a stone, in every respect resembling the "Sancy" was sold in 1835 by an agent of the Bourbons to the Princess Paula Demidoff for 500,000 roubles-pound 75,000, or, if paper money, about pound 35,000. Beyond Barbot's assertion there is no authority for this statement, which may have been put forward for political purposes, in order to implicate the Legitimists in the robbery of the Garde Meuble. Another report, that it somehow fell into the hands of the Queen of Spain, who presented it to her favourite, Godoi, "Prince of Peace," scarcely calls for serious refutation. Both statements cannot possibly be true, and both are contradicted by the fact that it entered the Demidoff family not through a Bourbon agent in 1835, but through a respectable French merchant in 1828, or thereabouts. Now comes the famous cause celebre of Prince Demidoff versus M. Levrat, Director of the Society of the Mines and Forges of the Grisons, Switzerland. After agreeing to buy the gem from M. Demidoff for 600,000 francs (pound 24,000), Levrat stated that it was not worth a third of that sum, since it had been greatly reduced in weight from being recut as a brilliant. The Prince accordingly agreed to accept 145,800 francs (pound 5,830), payable in three instalments at an interval of six months, the buyer placing 200 shares of the Swiss Company in the seller's hands as security for the payment. But Levrat, failing to discharge the very first instalment, M. Demidoff brought the action to have the contract cancelled, and to recover possession of the diamond, which Levrat had placed in the hands of the Mont de Piete or State Pawning Establishment. Judgment was given in favour of the plaintiff, who was authorized to withdraw the diamond on payment of the usual expenses due to the Mont de Piete, the defendant being condemned to pay the legal costs of the process.

The case was decided on June Ist, 1832, in the tribunal of First Instance presided over by M. D. Belleyme. Thirty-three years thereafter the "Sancy" resumed its travels, after all its strange vicissitudes again returning to "the land of its birth," for it was purchased in February, 1865, of the Demidoff family for pound 20,000 by a London firm, on behalf of the wealthy Parsee merchant, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, of Bombay. It did not, however, remain long in the East, for it was again in Paris in 1867, where it was to be seen in the glass case of MM. Bapst, shown in the Universal Exhibition of that year, who were then asking a million of francs for it. Certainly if there were as many solutions of continuity in the stone itself as in its history, as at that time published in the Paris press, we should tremble for the million of francs! It may be asserted without exaggeration that it has been made the subject of more contradictory accounts than perhaps any other historical jewel, the "Koh-i-Nur" alone excepted. Such accounts serve, however, at least to illustrate the anxiety which is naturally felt to enhance "the rare and beautiful" with a history worthy the intense desire to possess them, and thus to excuse our idolatry.

Whether Messrs. Oulman's expectations were fully realised or not, we cannot say. But in any case they appear to have soon found a purchaser for the "Sancy" in the Maharaja of Puttiala. In the account of the Prince of Wales' Tour in India it is stated that at the Grand Durbar, this native prince wore on his turban many fine diamonds which were said to have belonged to the Empress Eugenie, and "the 'Great Sancy' as a pendant." By a strange fatality this stone has again been thrown on the market. As the Prince of Wales was landing in England on his return from India, a telegram was put into his hand announcing the sudden death of his friend the Maharaja of Puttiala. In consequence of this event, the 'Sancy' is once more on sale.