yellow flaw had been greatly extended (although blackened) and so had reduced the value of the stone by more than half.*
I
had long suspected the yellow Diamond was naturally susceptible of the
same improvement from fire as the orange Topaz. My opinion has been
verified last year by the experiment of M. Frenny who exhibited at a
meeting of the Académie des Sciences a yellow Diamond weighing 4
grammes (15 car.) which by exposure to a high temperature was turned to
a fine rose colour. Unfortunately the original sin of yellow returns a
few days after the baptism of fire.
CHARLES THE BOLD'S DIAMOND.
Comines
relates that in the plundering of the Duke's tent after the rout at
Granson where he lost all his jewels, f a common soldier found his "
great Diamond which was one of the largest in Christendom," tossed away
the jewel as a worthless bauble, but kept the box containing it (a gold
one may be well supposed). He had thrown the Diamond under a waggon,
but on second thoughts he looked for and picked it up again, and sold
it to a priest for one florin ; the priest in his turn sold it for
three francs to the magistrates of his own canton. This explains how it
got into the hands of the Bernese Government, from whom Fugger
purchased it, together with the other remarkable trophies of their
victory now to be described.
J.
J. Fugger, one of the celebrated Nuremburgh family, had left a full and
very curious written description illustrated with exact drawings (made
by himself in the year
