118 NATURAL EISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
branded
on both shoulders, and to be imprisoned for life in the Salpetrière.
She, however, escaped thence in man's attire and managed to rejoin her
husband in London, where she died, in 1791, either of a bilious fever,
or from throwing herself out of the window in a fit of delirium.
Note.—For
all the details connected with the present trade in Diamonds, both
wholesale and retail, the reader desirons of complete and accurate
information can have no better authority than Barbot " ancien
joaillier," under "Diamant," in his 'Traité Complet des Pierres
Précieuses,' Paris, 1858. But the historical portion of that article
is full of inaccuracies, as indeed is the rest of his treatise in that
particular department : but when it attempts the branch of the subject
relating to art and archaeology the book is infinitely more defective
and swarms with the most palpable blunders : its teaching is only
valuable so leng as its author, "the retired jeweller," keeps closely
within the limits of his métier. Much however—and that the best
part—of his information has been .borrowed without acknowledgment from
Claire's 'La Science des Pierres Précieuses appliquée aux Arts,' Paris,
1833 : now extremely scarce, and therefore liable to be pillaged with
impunity. The want, long felt, in our literature of a Handbook on the
same principle as Caire's, has at last been well and amply supplied by
H. Emanuel in his perfect bijou of a volume, 'Diamonds and Precious Stones,' 1865.
