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THE SANCY
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Henry
III of France was bald, even when a youth. To draw attention away horn
this embarrassment he depended upon a glittering stone, too vapid a
person to realize that you cannot conceal something by pointing in its
direction. This man, this human equation ot what Sainte-Beuve calls
"dull and profound corruption," featured in the most unwholesome
chapter in the long and glamorous story of a beautiful diamond: the
Sancy. When you hear people speak of a diamond as a thing of mystery,
romance, adventure, bloodshed, tragedy, you must think of the Sancy,
for its history embodied all these things, as has no other gem known.
This
stone has both positively authenticated history and doubtful legend
behind it. The legend goes back centuries and the truth begins,
sardonically enough, with the reign of Henry, who was a liar and a
cheat. The stone's early history is a thing of conjecture. Gem
authority Robert M. Shipley sets the background this way:
From
the days that legend tells us Fugger, the Nuremberg "banker, secured
the diamond with other Ducal jewels from the Bernese government, to the
day when poor James Stuart, exiled King of England, parted with it to
Louis XIV, the Sancy was invaluable as a money raiser. Henry III, Henry
IV, and the Stuart Kings of England profited by the possession of the
stone, to say nothing of Sancy himself. . . . But when you speak of the
rest. . . . The Sancy diamond has had a most confusing history owing to
the legend that it was one of the great diamonds lost by Charles of
Burgundy after his defeat at Nancy or Granson. Its history is well
confused with that of the Florentine. Authorities are now in perfect
agreement that the Sancy was never in the possession of the Duke of
Burgundy, but the story still lingers on in newspapers, magazines
(138)
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