HISTORICAL AND REMARKABLE DIAMONDS. 221
It has its tale of woe if, as is sometimes said, it once belonged
to Charles the Bold and was lost, together with his other jewels,
on the disastrous field of Grandson. It was found by a Swiss
soldier, who, after the conflict, ignorant of its real value, sold it
to a priest for a florin, and from him it passed to a Genoese
merchant, who disposed of it to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Subsequently, the gem came into the possession of Pope Julius
II., one of the Medici family, and by him was presented to the
Austrian crown in the reign of Maria Theresa. That the stone
is cut after the Indian fashion, is produced as counter evidence
that it came into Italy from the East, therefore never belonged
to the Duke of Burgundy, and could not have been found on
the field of Grandson. Tavernier saw this diamond in Florence
in the middle of the seventeenth century, and from this date
its authentic history begins.
The Austrian is of a decided yellow tint and ranks next to the
Orloff for large cut diamonds found in Europe ; it is a double
rose, faceted all over, and weighs one hundred thirty-nine and
one-half carats ; different estimates represent its value from
two hundred thousand dollars to nearly eight hundred thousand.
The Great Saticy. — This diamond has been very appropriately called the sphinx among diamonds ; indeed, its history is
involved in bewildering contradictions, which it is impossible to
unravel with only the glimmering light which illumines its
record. It appears and disappears in the most mysterious
manner for a period of four centuries, and has been the subject of more conflicting statements than any other or perhaps
all other diamonds known to literature or science. There is
no way of reconciling these contradictions but by admitting
there was more than one diamond called Sancy.
Tradition refers this gem to Charles the Bold, its first
