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DIAMONDS IN FASHION: II
a
baron. But his conduct of affairs during his second administration was
under suspicion. Meanwhile, in some mysterious manner, he received a
beautiful stone. Why? How? His administration of the Madras colony had
been suspect, and some said that at a time when England was planning to
invade one of the territories of a Mogul nabob he had "interfered." It
was said that he received the beautiful diamond, later named after
him, in return for having influenced the abandonment of the planned
invasion.
He
carried on his nefarious administration of governmental affairs in
Ireland until one day in August, 1776, he was arrested. He was placed
in confinement and a year later died. The stone was willed to two
brothers and a sister. They held on to it, however, selling it more
than a decade later. In 1801 it was placed with Christie's, London, the
world's most famous auction house. The pawnbroking firm of Parlet and
Brickett or Princes Street bought it and resold it to another
pawnbroker, the firm of Rundell and Bridge, and then. . . .
What
happened after that is clear in spite of the many garbled rumors. One
rumor is that Mme. Bonaparte, mother of Napoleon, bought it and that it
formed a part of her famous diamond necklace. Another is that Mohammed
Ali, the "Lion of the Levant," who was Pasha of Egypt from 1805 to
1840, bought it. Actually, the stone was purchased from Christie's of
London by agents of Ali Pasha of Jananina, Albania.
He
was then a man of about seventy, powerful throughout the Near East,
famous as the "Lion of Jananina." He had a great love of beauty, in
spite of his reputation as a cruel vizier of Albania, and he collected
diamonds assiduously, passionately, at one time having in his
collection stones once owned by Caroline, ex-queen of Naples and a
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