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DIAMONDS IN LEGEND
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battle
of Marengo in 1800. In 1802 he wore it in the hilt of his sword at his
famous, personally conducted coronation as Emperor. After Napoleon's
time the Regent was for a wMe the shuttlecock of political fortunes. Carried off to Blois by Marie Louise after the
exile of her husband, Napoleon, it was handed over to Louis-XVIII by
her father, the Emperor of Austria. Louis XVIII fled with it to Ghent
in 1815, but brought it back when he ascended the French throne. Again
among the newly augmented crown jewels of Napoleon III it survived the
Second Empire and the Prussian War and when the French crown jewels
were sold at auction in 1886 the Regent was reserved "on account of
its historical value."
No more convincing proof of the esteem with which peoples of culture regard gems as objects of art has ever been evidenced than in the case of this beautiful stone.
France,
says Mr. Shipley, in writing of this country and this stone during the
months preceding the second World War, "has placed its Regent in the
central case in the Gallery of Apollo, most important gallery of the
Louvre Museum in Paris. In discouragement of racketeers or of authors
of detective stories, it is well to mention that night theft of the
Regent is difficult, since the entire glass case is automatically
lowered into a vault upon the closing of the Museum."
Ah,
yes, that was written before this war! The international racketeers
since moved into a great city and ransacked it as they have not done
before. The glass case "automatically lowered into a vault upon the
closing of the Museum" has proved as ineffectual as the Maginot Line,
intended to defend all France from the invader, from the Great
Racketeer. And so, what has happened to the Regent diamond is known
only in inner councils of the racketeers who were not discouraged, but
who rather discouraged human frailty with bombs or the threat of bombs.
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(211)
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