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The Great Sancy

The Sphinx of Diamonds--Looking Back over Three Hundred Years--In the Days of the "Holy League" A Royal Debauchee--A Faithful Valet--Important Revelations--Under a Cloud--A "Cause Celebre"--Once More on its Travels--An Incident of the Prince of Wales's Indian Tour.

THIS is the very sphinx of diamonds. The history of many other gems is no doubt sufficiently obscure, and often involved in great confusion. There is generally, however, some key to the solution of the most difficult problems, and the writers of this work are complacent enough to hope that the reader will find more than one such problem satisfactorily solved in the accompanying pages. But the "Sancy" seems to be wrapped in a dense cloud of mystery, defying the most subtle analysis, and impenetrable to the attacks of the keenest processes of reasoning. Nevertheless, there are even here, one or two breaks of light, by means of which it may be possible to dissipate the darkness in which this famous jewel has hitherto been involved. Much of this darkness is due to the commonly accepted statement, that the "Sancy" was one of the large diamonds lost by Charles of Burgundy, either at Nancy or Granson. Its history thus became entangled in that of the "Florentine," elsewhere elucidated. Once separated from that connection, and from the Burgundian duke, to whom we shall see that it never belonged, its career, although still somewhat obscure, becomes at least, consistent with facts, and on the whole, fairly intelligible.

The "Sancy" is described as almond-shaped, and originally facetted on both sides, a form and cut peculiar to India, and altogether unknown in Europe. We may therefore, take it for granted that it was not one of the stones manipulated by Louis de Berquem, for Duke Charles. On the other hand, its Indian origin harmonises with the statement made, amongst others, by Louis's descendant, Robert de Berquem that the gem was brought from the East by M. de Sanci, French Ambassador at the Ottoman Court, who purchased it for a large sum in Constantinople, apparently about the year 1570. This French gentleman, Nicholas Harlai, Seigneur de Sancy, was evidently a diamond fancier, as shown by the fact that he also in 1589, obtained another large stone from Don Antonio, the pretendant to the Portuguese crown, as security for an advance of 100,000 livres, which was never repaid.