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THE BERYL.
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and luxury of the Montezumas, including two vases cut from
this gem, priced at three hundred thousand ducats. Cortez, while in Mexico, sent to the emperor, as a present, an emerald pyramid with " a base of the size of a man's palm," besides other gifts, which were captured by the French, and went to enrich the collection of his rival, Francis I. Charles received from Montezuma and the Spanish commissioners magnificent gifts of emeralds, pearls, and red gems
supposed to be rubies, with two necklaces comprising from three to four hundred emeralds, — a bonus sufficient to satisfy a less ambitious prince than the German emperor. After the conquest of the New World, emeralds became very
plentiful in Europe, where before they were comparatively scarce. As a proof that the American variety had been adopted for the favorite ornament in the highest social circles, Hamlin refers to a parure made of remarkably beautiful specimens of this gem, which was bequeathed to her daughter by the Queen of Navarre in 1572. The Dresden Museum contains a large uncut emerald, the gift of Rudolph II., and the collection at Munich several of large size, from Peru. An emerald taken from the tomb of Charlemagne, which had been used by this conqueror as a talisman, came, by some unexplained fortune, into the possession of Aix-la-Chapelle, and was presented by the citizens to Napoleon I., who gave it to Queen Hortense, after having worn it at Austerlitz and Wagram. The treasury of the Czar of Russia contains many fine emeralds, including some of large size and others of extraordinary
beauty ; to the latter class belongs a gem of thirty carats, perfectly transparent, immaculate in color and considered one of the most superb in Europe. The crown of Vladimir, the state sceptre, the imperial orb, and the sceptre of Poland, preserved in the Kremlin, are more or less ornamented with emeralds, |
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