HE
rays of light which penetrate this brilliant are not more deflected,
distorted, and confusing than is the history of the birth and early
destination of the gem ; and to add still more to the perplexity, there
is inseparably attached to its very name a scandal which, like the
stone itself, appears to be about the only solid reality on which we
can rest. Prince Orloffs love intrigue with the Czarina, Catherine the
Second of Russia, is a well-known page in the history of Imperial
courts.* The temporary cloud that gathered about his relations with
