brilliant.
The Prince accordingly agreed to accept 145,800 francs ((,£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 1st, 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 £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
