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HOB-NAILED BOOTS IN THE LOWLANDS
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has
become one of the highest, if not the highest, paid tradesman in the
world. There are other reasons than the war, however, for that
condition, and to understand them it will be of help to look into the
history of the diamond cutter as a guildsman or organized craftsman.
Indian
cutters have a rather loose claim to being the first guildsmen, but
when you remember that most of them were slave labor the term "guild"
is a bit flattering. There is mention of a guild of diamond cutters in
the ancient Bavarian city of Nuremberg as far back as 1373. But the
guild definitely is known to have become established in the real sense
of the term sometime in the sixteenth century in Poland, Portugal,
Spain, and particularly France.
For
some years after young Louis XIV became king of France (1643), diamond
cutters of Paris found themselves struggling desperately for work. Many
Parisians, instead of patronizing home jewelers, turned to other cities
where they felt they could buy the finest stones of Golconda, cut in
the latest rose-cut mode. The king thoughtfully decided to stimulate
interest in the art of the French gem-cutters by deciding to refashion
eighteen of the biggest diamonds in the royal crown. (Some records say
there were only twelve such diamonds.) These stones were known as "The
EightÂeen (or 12) Mazarins."
A
year after Louis XIV's marriage to the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa,
he lost his famous counselor, Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661).
Cardinal Mazarin was one of the greatest collectors of jewels in
history. The crown jewels of France already were valued at more than
four and one-half millions of dollars, but they were too often in pawn
to moneylenders for the payment of Swiss soldiers in the servÂice of
France. Cardinal Mazarin began to buy up entire collections of precious
stones. When Charles I of England
(99)
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