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The Diamond 59
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the
slave into the sea. He afterwards sold the diamond to a prominent
dealer for a thousand pounds sterling, squandered the money in
dissipation, and finally, in a fit of delirium tremens and remorse,
hanged himself.
The
dealer sold it in February, 1702, to Thomas pitt, Governor of Fort St.
George, and greatgrandfather of the illustrious English statesman,
William Pitt, for the sum of £20,400. Pitt had the stone cut and
polished at a cost of £5000, but the c'eavage and dust obtained in the
cutting returned to him the handsome sum of £15,000. In 1717 he sold it
to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, during the minority of King
Louis XV., for the gum of £135,000; so that he must have netted a
profit of nearly £125,000 on his venture.
Later,
in the inventory of the French crown jewels, drawn up in 1791, it was
valued at 12,000,000 francs, or $2,400,000. Soon afterwards, during the
" Paris Commune," it was, with other valuable jewels, stolen and buried
in a ditch to prevent its recovery. One of the robbers, however, on a
promise of a full pardon, later revealed its hiding-place, and it was
found. All of the criminals were sent to the scaffold, except the one
who had turned informer.
The
recovery of the " Regent" is claimed to have helped to put the first
Napoleon upon the throne of France, by having enabled him, through
pledg-ing it to the Dutch government, to raise sufficient funds to make
a success of the Marengo campaign. Since its redemption from the Dutch
government it has served as an ornament in the pommel of the First
Emperor's sword, and has ever been the most
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