Around the middle of the XVII century, representatives of the royal dynasties of Europe began to show an unconstrained passion for luxury and magnificent celebrations. Most distinguished by this was the French King Louis XIV, who created a new "solar empire" - an empire of boundless passion for luxury.
For him, the dangerous times of the Fronde have passed away, when the French feudal lords rebelled against the royal power, who used the Paris inhabitants and the peasant movement in their interests. Louis XIV simply crossed these events from his memory, and from the book of minutes of parliamentary sittings personally ripped out the pages that somehow touched on the era. You are mistaken, gentlemen," said the Sun King, "if you believe that the state is you! The state is me!
Cardinal Giulio Mazarini grafted Louis XIV's propensity and cravings for gems and encouraged the king to collect gems and French Finance Minister Jean Baptiste Colbert. Gold and diamonds," he said, "are good, timeless money. Everything is bought with this money, Sire. Buy a little naked and increase its value by good polishing. But it must be a good stone, and people who know it must be responsible for its quality.
One such person who evaluated the royal treasure was J.B. Tavernier, a gem merchant, banker, and friend of the king. From his last trip to Asia, he brought and presented 25 large diamonds on a velvet cushion to the Sun King. From the multitude of gems, Louis XIV grabbed a glimpse of one of the gems and began to look through it at the light. It was a bluish violet diamond for which the king granted J.B. Tavernier the title of the nobleman.
The history of the sapphire-blue diamond Hope (44 carats) is interesting and entertaining also because blue diamonds are extremely rare, they are known very little. Around this diamond, there were strange rumors for centuries - as if it was a fatal stone that brings misfortune, as it itself for many centuries lay a curse.
The ancient Indian legend says that for a long time the diamond was the eye of the god Rama and anyone who will take possession of this stone, waiting for disease, persecution, dishonor and, ultimately, inevitable death. Indeed, a large blue diamond of rare beauty was brought to Europe from India together ... with the plague.
Louis XIV ordered the stone to be cut in the shape of a heart and gave it to one of his favorites, but soon it lost the favor of the king. And from him soon turned away from military happiness. Even the king's death - 43 years later - was attributed to the action of the stone, not taking into account the time of Louis XIV's acquisition of the stone and the date of his death.
After him, the diamond went to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who once lent it to Princess Lambal. Soon the princess was brutally murdered and then beheaded by the owner of the stone during the revolution.
Despite the curse weighing on the stone, there were more and more adventurers who wanted to own this rare diamond. During the looting of the French royal treasury, the diamond fell into the hands of one of the students of the cadet corps, who sold it to Amsterdam-based jeweler Waals. The jeweler gave the diamond for cutting, after which the stone was sold by Waals' son to London. Pretty soon, all the participants in these operations died under rather mysterious circumstances. Later, the diamond was split and polished again, and the next owner got it much smaller in size.
After the diamond was cut by Waals, a small part of the stone (about 14 carats) fell to the "Diamond Duke" Carl of Braunschweig. In 1830, the outraged burghers overthrew this boastful and despotic ruler.
The diamond passed through a lot of hands - adventurers of all stripes, rebels, captains, and diplomats, and in 1830 it was acquired by English banker T.G. Hope (hence the name of the diamond - "Hope"). For some time this stone in the Hope family was inherited until it fell into the hands of Lord Henry Francis Hope. He intended to sell the diamond to pay off his numerous card debts. However, the sale was opposed by the rest of the family and was followed by a long lawsuit. It was only in 1901 that G.F. Hope received permission to sell the jewelry.
The journey of the fatal stone did not end there - the diamond was purchased by the Turkish sultan Abdul-Hamid II for his beloved wife. Sometime later, this woman fell into the hands of robbers and murderers, and the sultan himself was deposed from the throne and died in exile. There is another version of the story: his beloved wife stabbed her husband with a dagger.
In 1901, the Russian prince Korytkovsky gave a diamond to a Parisian dancer Ledya, who was soon shot in a fit of jealousy, and after a while fell victim to the assassination attempt. Then the diamond went to one Spaniard, and he soon drowned in the open sea. Then the stone found a new owner in the face of an American who bought the diamond as a gift to his wife, and soon the couple lost their only child, and the poor father of grief lost his mind.
For a long time, the owner of the stone was E.W. Maclean - a famous socialite from Washington. To get rid of the curse on the diamond, she took the necklace in which the diamond was inserted into the church, and the priest consecrated it. Only after that did E.W. Maclean put on the necklace and practically did not take it off. It is said that sometimes Lady E.U. Maclean gave her precious necklace to play to her little son - "to sharpen his teeth", and even put it around the neck of her beautiful Danish dog. The extravagant lady did not want to take off the necklace even before the operation, and the doctor had to convince her for a long time.
Mrs. E.U. Maclean lived a very unhappy life. Her marriage to her husband, who had been drinking heavily, broke up, and later died in a psychiatric hospital. The brother died untimely, and soon the eldest nine-year-old son of Mrs. E.W. Maclean was crushed by a car. In 1946, at the age of 25, her only daughter died, a tragedy that finally killed Mrs. E.W. Maclean, and a year later she died. She bequeathed all the jewels to her grandchildren, and perhaps, fortunately, she had not survived another tragedy: in 1967, her granddaughter died - and also at the age of 25.
When the grandchildren had to sell their jewels to pay off their debts, they were bought by the famous jewelry dealer Harry Winston. He did not believe in the curse weighing on the diamond and all the "sins of the stone" considered "as nonsense and nonsense, as a bunch of unfortunate accidents. For a while, Winston put "Hope" on display to the public to raise money for charitable purposes. And then he gave the diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and sent the gem in a usual parcel wrapped in plain paper.