Shakespeare and Precious Stones
great difficulty in securing full payment. Corneille Rogier set the jewels worn at her marriage by Anne d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIII. Two brothers, each bearing the name Pierre Courtois, are also noted in old records. One of them, at the time of his death, in 1611, occupied two apartments with two shops in the Louvre; the shop of the other had the sign " Aux Trois Roys," probably referring to the "Three Kings of the East," the Magi of the Gospel, very appropriate patrons for goldsmiths.24
Thierry Badouer, a German goldsmith-jeweller, received from the French court, in 1572, an order for 250,000 crowns' worth of jewels to be distributed as gifts at the approaching marriage of Henri de Navarre with Marguerite de Valois. He faithfully executed his part of the task and brought the jewels with him to Paris, but before he had been able to deliver them to the Royal Treasury they were stolen from him during the confusion of the St. Bartholomew Massacre. Eventually, in the reign of Henri IV, his widow was partly reimbursed for the loss, receiving one-quarter of the amount of her claim.25 After
24 Germain Bapst, "Histoire des Joyaux de la Couronne de France," Paris, 1889, pp. 175, 176, 300, 304.
25 Op. cit., p. 289.
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