Читать книгу The World's Most Mysterious Objects - Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE:The Curse of the Hope Diamond

The history of the Hope Diamond is shrouded in strange Indian mythology. According to one Hindu legend, Bali fell by the hand of Indra during the great battle between Indra and the demons led by Jalandhara. From Bali’s body came a flood of jewels — diamond from his bone, sapphire from his eyes, ruby from his blood, emeralds from the marrow within his bones, pearls from his teeth, and crystal from his flesh. Another Hindu demon, Ravana, abducted Sita, the wife of Rama. Rama, wild with grief, pursued her to the enemy’s stronghold, destroyed Ravana, and rescued his bride.

The Hindu religion is rightly famous for its amazing artwork and statuary. The uniquely magnificent Hope Diamond probably came originally from the Kollur Mine in Golconda, India. The diamond initially formed one of the eyes of a beautiful statue of the goddess Sita. According to tradition, which seems reasonably historically accurate, the diamond, originally well over 112 carats, was stolen from the Hindu temple in which the statue of Sita stood. The tradition identifies the location as a temple of Rama-Sitra situated near Mandalay. A French diamond trader, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, bought it from the thief, took it back with him to France, and sold it to King Louis XIV in 1668. Louis also purchased fourteen more large diamonds from Tavernier, as well as a number of smaller ones. The stone was re-cut by the court jeweller, Sieur Pitau, in 1673. The result was a 67-carat diamond described in the royal records as “steely blue.” It was known at the time as the French Blue or “The Blue Crown Diamond.” The King had it set in gold and wore it on a ribbon around his neck on ceremonial occasions.

The first indication that there was a curse on the diamond was the death of Tavernier. According to one account, having lost all his money, Tavernier returned to India to try to recoup his fortune. One account says he was savaged, killed, and partially eaten by wild dogs. During the reign of Louis XIV, the stone apparently passed for a time into the ownership of Nicolas Fouquet, who during the early years of that reign was the last Surintendant des Finances, (The post was later changed to Controleur General des Finances). Son of a royal administrator who was also a wealthy ship owner, young Nicolas supported Cardinal Mazarin during the Fronde Period, 1648-1653. In an age when government posts were purchased, Nicolas bought the job of Procureur General to the Parliament of Paris in 1650, and his appointment as Surintendant des Finances came in 1653. He and Mazarin loyally supported each other, and Fouquet lent money to the French Treasury, thus becoming in all practical terms banker to the King. He conducted a number of intricate financial operations in somewhat irregular ways and became incredibly rich in the process. Unfortunately for Fouquet, Mazarin died in 1661, and Colbert struggled to oust Fouquet and become finance minister himself. On December 20, 1664, Fouquet was condemned to be banished from France, but Louis XIV changed the sentence to life imprisonment, and Fouquet was incarcerated in the fortress of Pignerol. This was under the command of Monsieur de Saint Mars, a trusted servant of the King and the man who had custody of the “Man in the Iron Mask.” Fouquet was said to have died on March 23, 1680, but there are a number of serious researchers who believe him to have been the mysterious masked prisoner who lived on for many more years, and he was probably the custodian of some very strange secrets indeed. As one small example of just how much power and money Nicolas Fouquet controlled at the height of his career, we need look no further than Vaux-le-Vicomte. This incredibly luxurious structure occupied eighteen thousand workers and took over five years to build at a cost of millions of dollars. The great architect Louis le Vau designed the building. Charles le Brun, assisted by Andre le Notre, did the landscaping.

The most significant and interesting thing about Fouquet, apart from the source of his wealth and whether or not he became the Man in the Iron Mask, was the activity of his secretive younger brother, who was engaged in a great deal of seventeenth-century European espionage. This mysterious young man paid a visit to Rome, where he encountered Nicholas Poussin, the enigmatic painter closely associated with the mystery of the treasure of Rennes-le-Château — and more. A letter from the younger Fouquet to his immensely powerful and wealthy elder brother makes it clear that Poussin had a secret that was worth a great deal more than money could buy and that he was more than willing to place that secret at the disposal of the Fouquet team.

The Hope Diamond.

After Fouquet fell from power, the stone went back under Louis’s direct control. So Tavernier was apparently the first victim, Fouquet the second. When Fouquet was succeeded by Colbert, there is some evidence that one of Colbert’s first tasks was to send a powerful and well-equipped expedition to Rennes-le-Château, where they proceeded to excavate the ancient tomb of Arques — the one said to have been a perfect facsimile of that in Poussin’s most famous painting, The Shepherds of Arcadia. Whether Fouquet’s fall from power was connected in any way with the Poussin and Rennes-le-Château mysteries or with the curse allegedly attached to the Hope Diamond is a matter of conjecture. Fouquet’s fall was dramatic and indisputable.

Madame de Montespan, one of Louis XIV’s mistresses, was allowed to wear the famous diamond. She was implicated in a widespread black magic and poisoning conspiracy, and, although she was lucky enough to survive, a great many of her co-conspirators were executed, and she herself fell heavily from royal favour.

The stone was part of the legacy of the hapless Louis XVI, who gave it to Marie Antoinette: both King and Queen ended on the guillotine, and the Princess de Lamballe, who had once borrowed the stone from Marie Antoinette, was murdered by the mob. The unlucky blue diamond then disappeared for a while. It actually vanished from the Gard-Meuble along with the rest of the French crown jewels around 1792. Some of the pieces taken in this robbery were later recovered, but the Blue Crown Diamond was not. Surprisingly, one of Goya’s portraits showing Queen Maria Louisa of Spain depicts her wearing a remarkable diamond closely resembling the one that disappeared in 1792.

Another strong tradition connects the mysterious Hope Diamond and its run of ill fortune with a Dutch diamond cutter named Wilhelm Fals. His son, Hendrick, whom he loved and trusted, stole the stone from him. Wilhelm died of grief, and Hendrick, overcome by remorse, committed suicide shortly afterwards. Around 1830, a deep blue diamond of some forty-four and a half carats appeared in London. Experts agreed that it was none other than the famous French Blue, or Blue Crown Diamond, carefully re-cut in an attempt to conceal its identity. The very wealthy Henry Hope bought it, and since that date it has been known as the Hope Diamond. Surprisingly, Hope himself does not seem to have suffered any ill effects from his purchase, and there is no record of anything untoward happening to any members of his immediate family. However, the diamond passed into the hands of a singer named May Yohe, who was married to Lord Francis Hope. Their marriage was markedly unhappy, and May believed that the diamond would ever after bring misfortune to any who owned it. Before dying in great misery and poverty, she laid the blame completely on what she thought was the unlucky stone. Her husband, who had also had severe financial problems, sold the diamond some time before the First World War to Jacques Colot, who had once been a prosperous broker. After buying the stone from Francis Hope, Colot lost his mind and committed suicide. Before his death, he had disposed of the diamond to Kanitovsky, a rather obscure Russian prince who was greatly attracted to a French dancer at the Folies Bergeres. Kanitovsky then appears to have become as mentally disturbed as the unfortunate Colot: he shot his dancer friend, whose name was Ladrue, from his box in the theatre. He himself died not long afterwards — a victim of the Russian Revolution.

The diamond’s next owner was Simon Mantharides. He was either thrown over a precipice by his enemies or simply fell over accidentally. Abdul Hamid II, who was Sultan of Turkey at the time and known to those who did not admire him as Abdul the Damned, was deposed and became mentally ill within a year of acquiring the diamond.

The next owner, Habib Bey, was drowned.

The diamond passed swiftly through the hands of a French jeweler named Pierre Cartier and went from him to Edward Beale Maclean, who was the owner of the Washington Post Almost immediately after it came into Maclean’s household, his mother and two of their servants died. Ten-year-old Vincent (or Vinson), his son, was run over and killed in a traffic accident. Maclean himself was involved in a notorious scandal case and died an alcoholic. His widow, Evalyn, had no apparent fear of the diamond and wore it on many occasions. Tragically, her daughter committed suicide in 1946 by taking an overdose, and someone remembered that she had worn the diamond on her wedding day. When Evalyn died a year later, Harry Winston, a prosperous New York jeweller, bought the whole collection for around a million dollars. He prudently presented the Hope Diamond to the famous Smithsonian Institution.

The problem with legends of curses is that they tend to grow in the telling. If something like the Hope Diamond is said to bring misfortune, all deaths, accidents, ruined careers, and other tragic disasters will be remembered and clearly associated with the stone — or whatever the accursed object is said to be. On the other hand, the thousands of hands that touched the stone and went on to prosperity and happiness are conveniently overlooked because they detract from the melodrama of the tale. It cannot be said that the diamond has not travelled. In 1962, the Smithsonian lent it to the Louvre in Paris, where it formed part of an exhibit entitled “Ten Centuries of French Jewellery.” In 1965, it was exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg. In 1984, it went on exhibition at Harry Winston’s in New York as part of their fiftieth anniversary celebrations. It went there again in 1996 in order to be cleaned and refurbished in its setting. In December of 1998, experts from the Gemmological Institute of America made a modern study of the stone. They reported on its very strong phosphorescence and recorded its colour as a dark greyish blue. A very sensitive colorimeter picked up a minute violet component within the deep blue colour, so slight as to be invisible to the unaided eye, but it is odd that Tavernier, who brought it from India in the first place, referred to it as having a beautiful violet colour. Its current weight is 45.52 carats, its length 25.6 millimetres, its width 21.78 millimetres, and its depth 12 millimetres.

Other famous diamonds — which can also be classified among the world’s most mysterious objects — have followed trails of high adventure rather than downhill paths of ill fortune. The famous Millennium Star provides an example. Daringly taken from the war-ravished inte-rior of the Democratic Republic of Congo by two fearless Britons working for De Beers, the 777-carat stone was found to be flawless when it reached London. Expert cutting brought it down to a mere 203 carats, but it remains a masterpiece of the diamond cutter’s art.

Eight years after it was first found in Africa, it became the target of the most daring attempted jewel robbery of modern times. Using a JCB (a big earth-moving machine) to break in and a motor launch on the Thames for their intended getaway, the gang of diamond thieves was stopped by an ambush involving well over one hundred police officers. Perhaps it was the “lucky” number 777 that fended off tragedy, but allowed high adventure to surround the Millennium Star.

Yet another famous stone, the Koh-i-Noor, or Mountain of Light, left a trail of death and destruction behind it through centuries of Asian conquest and bloodshed. Nadir Shah took it from his defeated rival after the Battle of Karnal in 1736 and was duly murdered by a rival for the coveted throne. It finally came to rest in the late Queen Mother’s crown, worn at the coronation of her husband, King George VI, and very appropriately laid in state with her.