"
The present Queen of England has the diamond which the late Monsieur de
Sanci brought back from the Levant. It is almond-shaped, cut in facets
on both sides, perfectly white and clean, and it weighs,fifty-four
carats."
Berquen
was likely to be well-informed both from his profession and from his
position. His book is highly interesting and contains some very quaint
passages. Thus, when writing of diamonds he assumes a critical attitude
in surveying past writers and their deductions, and rejects with scorn
and as utterly unworthy of belief the statement that a lady, having two
large diamonds, put them away in a box and found, on again examining
the box, that they had produced several young ones.
The
expression " the present Queen of England " has considerably puzzled
many writers, since at that date there were two queens of England,
namely the dowager Henrietta and the consort of Charles n., Catherine
of Bra-ganza. It seems most probable that the expression refers to the
latter, for some years previous
