precious stones. That of the diamond is the most important.
DIAMOND-CUTTING.
The
discovery of diamond-cutting has been very generally attributed to
Louis de Berquem, a resident of Bruges, in the year 1465; but in fact
the actual discoveries of Berquem amounted only to the construction of
a polishing-wheel, to be used with diamond-dust, and a systematic
arrangement of the facets.
Long
before his time diamonds were cut in India and China; and the inventory
of the jewels of Louis of Anjou, drawn up between 1360 and 1368,
included a number of cut diamonds. Indeed, 150 years before the advent
of Berquem diamond-cutters had existed in Paris, one of these
especially, named Herman, had made notable progress in his art by the
beginning of the fifteenth century.
The grand centre of diamond-cutting
in Ber-quem's time was the town of Bruges; but pupils of his passed to
Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Paris, where they established other workshops
for diamond-cutting. Those at Paris did not at first succeed, but
afterwards, under the patronage of Mazarin, diamond-cutting took an
important position at Paris. After the death of Mazarin this
