24 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
challenged the splendor of Oriental monarchs by his entry into Rome in a chariot of gold sparkling with precious stones (a.d. 312-337).
Amid
all this profusion, in which millions of sesterces were lavished, the
diamond is noted only by rare allusions. This is probably accounted for
by the check in the advance of lapidary art on reaching a stone of such
indomitable hardness. Even the diamonds set in the clasp of the regal
mantle of Charlemagne, after the opening of the ninth century, show
only a partial polishing of the natural planes of the crystals. There
was no scientific cutting of facets to heighten the brilliancy of the
stone until the fifteenth century. When artificial shaping was
attempted before that time, it did not go beyond the production of a
flat top or table, or a convex surface, with a truncated pyramid as a
base. Even when a large number of facets were cut, as was sometimes
done by East Indian lapidaries, there was no scientific proportioning,
as was signally shown in the instance of the remarkable stone known as
the " Beau Sancy," which came into the possession of Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy. It was the recut-ting of this stone in 1465, by the
true artist Louis de Berquem of Bruges, that marks the rising of the
modern art that has enhanced so immensely the resplendence and beauty
of the diamond, and established its place securely as the chief among
gems that are prized for adornment.
Then
begins the entry of the famous diamonds passing over the face of Europe
with meteoric trains of adventure. The Beau Sancy glitters for a moment
in the splendid array led by Charles the Bold against the Swiss
peasants. On the bloody field of Granson (3d March, a.d. 1476)
where the best knights of Burgundy were killed or put to flight by the
mountaineers, the jewel that might ransom a king is trampled under foot
in the rout. A Swiss soldier picks it up. It is no more in his eye than
a bit of glass which he is well pleased to sell for a florin to a
priest. Philip de Commines says that the priest knew no more of its
value than the soldier, and thought he did well to make a franc by
selling the diamond to the burghers of Berne.
