BLUE DIAMOND OF THE FRENCH CROWN

One of the most beautiful diamonds of the world, surrounded by the greatest number of addition "sinister" secrets and having "bad" reputation is well-known bright blue  diamond "Hope" , also known as "Blue Tavernier", "Blue Diamond of the French crown", "French Blue", " French Blue "," Blue Hope ". On this rock, you can write a horror novel of fifty volumes. He killed one of his owners, with a methodical serial killer ...

Mademoiselle Ledyu star Paris corps de ballet, is located in a canvas deck chair in the center of the scene. Spotlight stopped for a moment on her beautiful face, slid a slim figure with luxurious forms. Blue fire broke out in the gemstone diamond necklace that adorned the already impressive cleavage diva.

From the depths of personal lodge looked longingly at her Russian Prince Ivan Korytovsky. Mademoiselle Ledyu was his mistress. And the awesome beauty of a diamond necklace, which started at the sight of the heart beat faster connoisseurs of precious stones, also belonged Korytovskomu.

The play is not over when a shot was heard. Mademoiselle Ledyu collapsed on stage. Prince in turmoil began quietly left the box and disappeared.
motive for murder, most likely, was jealousy. Actress, as you know, have never been very strict customs. Mademoiselle Ledyu was no exception. However, suspicions remained suspicions because two days later and was not the prince - the night of his stabbed in the street by robbers.

These two deaths at the beginning of the twentieth century, joined the long list of misfortunes that brought their owners Hope Diamond - a huge stone juicy blue.

According to legend, this diamond was found in the mines near Golconda Collura. French traveler Tavernier saw him in Indian temple - stone adorned one of the many gods. Tavernier cleared by them in 1669 and brought to France. Then the diamond weighed 112 carats and was the size of a ball golf course, that is was three times more of their present size.

Collection diamonds traveler and adventurer liked Louis XIV, and he did not hesitate to pay for it in terms of current price of about $ 100 million.

Most of all, the King of France liked the huge blue diamond. I must say, the Sun King adored gemstones, particularly diamonds. They were embroidered with his ceremonial jackets, they were decorated with buttons and wide-brimmed hats.Diamonds sparkled even buckles royal shoes. Say, on holidays or on the reception of foreign ambassadors Louis put diamonds on the tens of millions of dollars.

Four years after buying the king decided to give Blue Diamond even greater brilliance. After grinding and cutting stone in the form looked like a heart, and "lost" to 67 carats. Rumors of a stunning blue diamond, which is the Sun King is on a ribbon around his neck, spread throughout Europe. Stone became known as the "Blue Frenchman."

Doom diamond not be immediately apparent. As soon as Louis XIV to give it to his mistress, Madame de Montespan, as was the royal favorite, Madame de Maintenon, the governess of children Montespan.

Hardly a favorite of resignation can be considered a major disaster, but soon one after another began to die people close to the king: son, brother, grandson and grandson's wife, the only person he truly loved.

In September 1715 he died, himself the Sun King. Ascended to the throne of his great-grandson, who became Louis XV. The legacy of his great-grandfather, and he inherited the crown jewels. The first thing Louis ordered to decorate blue diamond Order of the Golden Fleece, which he often wore.

Loved wearing the Order of the famous diamond and his grandson Louis XVI. Becoming king in 1774, Louis gave the jewel to his wife Marie-Antoinette. The tragic fate of this family is well known. The fall of the Bastille, terror, arrests and executions of aristocrats. Guillotined killed most of the French nobility. At night, June 20, 1791, Louis XVI and his wife, children and governess tried to escape from Paris. In Varenna King learned sympathizer revolution postal superintendent. He warned the soldiers, and Louis was captured.

The revolutionary government ordered to deliver the crown jewels from Versailles to Paris and put them on the furniture warehouse, which then was partially adapted into a museum.

Now everyone can enjoy the crown jewels. However, the protection was set so bad that historians still wonder how it is not stolen before. Ground floor windows were not locked, the guard changed at different times, often sleeping on posts. No wonder that the furniture warehouse interested in 35-year-old thief Paul Mett. Several times he came to look at the jewelry and clearly intended to steal them, but in March 1792 he was arrested for another theft and jailed.

August 10 crowd took the Tuileries Palace. Royal family for security was transferred to Temple, a medieval fortress, which belonged to the Knights Templar. From there, the king and queen came out in 1793, but only in order to lay down their heads to the guillotine. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette joined the list of owners of the blue diamond, violent deaths.

Three weeks later, Paris rebelled again. The crowd broke into the jail, broke in 1200 and released aristocrats "ordinary" prisoners, among whom was Paul Mett. Soon blue diamond disappeared for 20 years.

Two gang of thieves, one of which was headed by Mett, met at 11 pm in a furniture warehouse. While some depicted guards, others climbed to the second floor balcony. Grilles on the windows was not, so get inside is not difficult. Easily broke the lock on the trunk, the thieves saw a collection of diamonds Louis XIV in all its splendor and magnificence. Mett took the white stones, leaving colorful, including the blue diamond and colleagues.

Mining was so great that all carry at one time failed. The next night, the thieves returned, taking the bread, sausage and wine. With appetite dined in the warehouse. And during the division of diamonds, feverish wine, quarreled. They make noise, trying to divide the booty with justice, that woke the guards. Those called the police. The robbers paid for their greed heads.

Most of the stolen jewelry was returned, but the blue diamond disappeared. But how to sell the most famous in Europe gemstone? The only possible way was re-cut. It did in Amsterdam, the European center of the diamond trade.

Hope diamond and lead a copy of the "Blue Frenchman"

In 1812, the blue diamond (the size of it now was 2.5 centimeters), floated in London. The new owner, a merchant named Eliason jewelry, stone sold in 1830 for 30,000 pounds ($ 1.1 million in current prices), Henry Philip Hope, a member of the famous dynasty of bankers in Britain. On behalf of the new owner's blue diamond has since became known as the Hope diamond.

The banker, who has lived a lifetime bachelor, bequeathed his enormous fortune three nephews. The eldest, Henry, bought the Hope diamond and put it on display in Hyde Park. After seven years, experts have concluded that the diamond Hope, no longer having a heart shape and now weighs "only" 47 carat, is the most famous stone, which once admired the Sun King.

Henry Hope left blue diamond eldest daughter Henrietta, who married Henry Pelham-Clinton, the fifth Duke of Newcastle.

After the death of Henrietta diamond passed to her youngest grandson, Lord Henry PelhemuKlintonu. Financial problems forced the Lord to sell it in 1901 from a dealer Hatton Garden for 33 thousand pounds. His lordship was so worried about parting with the stone, which has banned talk about him in his presence.

Did not bring happiness diamond and the next owner. Frenchman named Kolot mad and committed suicide. In what state he was selling diamond Hope Prince Korytovskomu unknown.

After the death of Ivan Korytovskogo Hope Diamond bought the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II, or, as it is called, Abdul the Damned. By the time already being rumored that the famous diamond brings misfortune to its owners alone. Abdul shot his wife, Salma Sultana Zobeida, which at the time of the murder was just the stone.

In 1909, Abdul-Hamid overthrew the Young Turks. The new authorities have exposed Sultan jewelry on sale in Paris. Hope Diamond bought a Habibbey. A few weeks later the ship, which sailed jeweler, sank 60 kilometers from Singapore. Famous diamond went to the bottom with his own ...

However, it soon became clear that the stone and did not leave the French capital. In June of the same year he was again sold, this time the famous Parisian jeweler Pierre Cartier for the astronomical sum of 550 thousand. Francs. It was he who began to spread rumors about the curse associated with the stone, though proved to be one of the very few owners who have managed to avoid doom.

Cartier diamond passed to Evelyn Walsh McLean, the daughter of a millionaire Thomas Walsh, grown rich in the gold mines of Colorado. Evelyn childhood passed in the mines and the mines, but later she received the best education at the time and married to the heir to a newspaper empire Edward McLean, according to the riches almost equal to her father.

In the summer of 1910, shortly after the birth of their first child, McLean went to Paris. Cartier showed them Hope diamond.Millionaire did not like the bezel. Cartier changed the frame and put a blue stone in the center of the necklace of a stunningly beautiful white diamonds. In October of the same year, he brought him to New York, along with documents about the turbulent history of the diamond, and allowed Evelyn to leave the necklace at his weekend. The trick that worked. On Monday Evelyn was about to buy a necklace. The spring of 1911 she purchased it for 180 thousand dollars (7 million at current prices).

Knowing the reputation of a blue diamond, Evelyn McLean literally the next day went with him to the priest. After removal of damage is almost always wore a necklace.

Evelyn did not believe in the infamous Hope diamond, but after buying her life has changed for the worse. Her brother died young; eldest son, whose birth they noted buying necklaces, died in a car accident at the age of 9 years. Husband started drinking, family life ended in divorce. The only daughter of Evelyn died of a drug overdose in 1946.

Evelyn herself died of pneumonia a year later. She died on Saturday, when the banks were closed. Her executors nearly turned gray from anxiety, not knowing where to store the necklace with diamond Hope until Monday. Rescued head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, will put it in his safe.

All 74 items in the collection of jewelry Evelyn McLean were purchased in April 1949, the New York jeweler Harry Winston, known for device "diamond balls" in the United States and beyond. During these colorful show about diamond learned half of America. 9 years later, in November 1958, Winston sent it parcel post to the Smithsonian Institution as a gift.

Valuable gift came to the museum by registered post. Winston sent a diamond wrapped in a simple kraft paper out of superstition. But the diamond and then showed his bloody mission, a few days later a messenger came under the truck.Messenger himself survived, but his house was burned, buried under the ruins of his wife and dog.

Hope all facets of the diamond in a platinum frame shimmer in the glow of artificial light in the Metropolitan Museum. About the blue diamond, slowly rotating on a circular base of a light brown marble, always crowded with visitors.

Perhaps no other gemstone not guarded so carefully, like a diamond Hope. It lies under the thick bulletproof glass, and may at any moment fall into the first of several ultra-reliable, safe storage at the base of the stand. Room safe, in which case the danger would be stone, changing every day. Calculate its impossible.

Diamond Hope never ceases to amaze how the inhabitants and specialists. In 1965 scientists "De Beers" found that the irradiation of ultraviolet rays just a few minutes he glows like a red-hot ember. Mineralogists claim that other diamonds do not behave.

Diamond left the Smithsonian only four times: to show in the Louvre (1962), Johannesburg (1965) and New York (1984). In 1996, diamond necklace Hope was transferred to Harry Winston in New York for cleaning and minor restoration work.

Nowadays, diamond, thanks to the masters of the famous jeweler Harry Winston Inc temporarily installed in an awesome necklace and named «Embracing Hope» («Embracing Hope"), and on display from November 18, 2010.

More than 100 thousand people have chosen a stunning new design in an online vote on the Smithsonian Channel. Masters of "Harry Winston Inc." for eight months produced a new masterpiece of the jeweler's art. Inlaid with 340 diamonds weighing 60 carats necklace made of platinum surrounds the legendary deep-blue diamond Hope.

Hope Diamond weighs 45.52 carats, clarity VS1, the length of 25.60 mm, a width of 21.78 mm and a depth of 12.00 mm. Brand  Harry Winston Inc  announced a donation of 1 million. dollars in Hope Foundation to support the study of rocks and minerals Sciences at the Smithsonian Institution.

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