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The Case of the Nun's Ruby 93
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The
De Maderos also experienced bad fortune above the average. They, in
turn, during another revolutionary upheaval in 1908 (if there was
indeed "bad luck" in the stones it had taken, you see, a long time to
descend upon the De Maderos, for Maximilian was executed in 1867), had
to flee the country. They stowed away on an east-bound liner. Their
ship encountered a storm during which the Princess Charlotte's rubies
went down in the Chesapeake Bay, never presumably to rise again until
the earth gives up its dead and the sea its treasures.
England's great ruby, which has a place in the King's state crown, has probably the longest European pedigree of all rubies, for it was a gift to the
Black Prince from a King of Castile some five hundred years ago. But
the Black Prince's ruby is after all only a spinel ruby, which, as has
been said, is a thing of comparatively low degree.
Then
there were the celebrated rubies of Queen Marie of Roumania, who died a
little while ago. These gems came to her from her mother, a Russian
Tsar's daughter, and she in turn handed them on to her daughter,
Princess Ileana, now Archduchess Anton of Hapsburg. She is reported to
have said at the time that they would go better with Princess Ileana's
dark beauty than with her own English fairness, and in truth rubies are
jewels that prefer brunettes.
Of
great and noble rubies the tale is unending. Queen Mary has some
exquisite rubies set in a brooch and pendant which she inherited under
the will of the Countess Torby, wife of the Grand Duke Michael of
Russia. These jewels had originally been chosen for the Empress
Alexandra of
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