Chapter IX: Part 9

"Two rows of brilliants set _en chatons_, one row composed of forty-six brilliants, the other of forty-four; eight sprigs of wheat in brilliants, composed of about five hundred brilliants, weighing fifty-seven carats; a garland of brilliants that may be taken to pieces and worn as three distinct ornaments, three large brilliants forming the centre of the principal flowers, the whole comprising seven hundred and nine brilliants, weighing eighty-five carats three-quarters; a Sévigné mounted in colored gold, in the centre of which is a burnt topaz surrounded by diamonds weighing about three grains each, the drops consisting of three opals similarly surrounded by diamonds; one of the three opals is of very large size, in shape oblong, with rounded corners; the whole set in gold studded with rubies and pearls.

"A _parure_ of opals, consisting of a necklace and Sévigné, two bracelets, ear-rings the studs of which are emeralds, comb, belt-plate set with an opal in the shape of a triangle; the whole mounted in wrought gold, studded with small emeralds.

"A Gothic bracelet of enamelled gold, in the centre a burnt topaz surrounded by three large brilliants; in each link composing the bracelet is a square emerald; at each extremity of the topaz forming the centre ornament are two balls of burnished gold, and two of wrought gold.

"A pair of girandole ear-rings of brilliants, each consisting of a large stud brilliant and of three pear-shaped brilliants united by four small ones; another pair of ear-rings composed of fourteen small brilliants forming a clustre of grapes, each stud of a single brilliant.

"A diamond cross composed of eleven brilliants, the ring being also of brilliants.

"A bracelet with a gold chain, the centre-piece of which is a fine opal surrounded with brilliants; the opal is oblong and mounted in the Gothic style; the clasp is an opal.

"A gold bracelet, with a _grecque_ surrounded by six angel heads graven on turkoises, and a head of Augustus.

"A serpent bracelet _à la Cléopatre_, enamelled black, with a turkois on its head.

"A bracelet with wrought links burnished on a dead ground; the clasp a heart of burnished gold with a turkois in the centre, graven with Hebrew characters.

"A bracelet with a row of Mexican chain, and a gold ring set with a turkois and fastened to the bracelet by a Venetian chain.

"A ring, the hoop encircled with small diamonds.

"A ring, _à la chevalière_, set with a square emerald between two pearls.

"A gold _chevalière_ ring, on which is engraved a small head of Napoleon.

"Two belt-buckles, Gothic style, one of burnished gold, the other set with emeralds, opals, and pearls.

"A necklace of two rows coral; a small bracelet of engraved carnelians.

"A comb of rose diamonds, form D 5, surmounted by a large rose surrounded by smaller ones, and a cinque-foil in roses, the _chatons_ alternated, below a band of roses."

The weight of the diamond, as every one knows, is estimated in _carats_ all over the world. And what is a carat, pray? and whence its name? It is of Indian origin, a _kirat_ being a small seed that was used in India to weigh diamonds with. Four grains are equal to one carat, and six carats make one pennyweight. But there is no standard weight fixed for the finest diamonds. Competition alone among purchasers must arrange their price. The commercial value of gems is rarely affected, and among all articles of commerce the diamond is the least liable to depreciation. Panics that shake empires and topple trade into the dust seldom lower the cost of this king of precious stones; and there is no personal property that is so apt to remain unchanged in money-value.

Diamond anecdotes abound, the world over; but we have lately met with two brief ones that ought to be preserved.

"Carlier, a bookseller in the reign of Louis XIV., left, at his death, to each of his children,--one a girl of fifteen, the other a captain in the guards,--a sum of five hundred thousand francs, then an enormous fortune. Mademoiselle Carlier, young, handsome, and wealthy, had numerous suitors. One of these, a M. Tiquet, a Councillor of the Parliament, sent her on her fête-day a bouquet, in which the calices of the roses were of large diamonds. The magnificence of this gift gave so good an opinion of the wealth, taste, and liberality of the donor, that the lady gave him the preference over all his competitors. But sad was the disappointment that followed the bridal! The husband was rather poor than rich; and the bouquet, that had cost forty-five thousand francs, (nine thousand dollars,) had been bought on credit, and was paid out of the bride's fortune."

"The gallants of the Court of Louis XV. carried extravagance as far as the famous Egyptian queen. She melted a pearl,--they pulverized diamonds, to prove their insane magnificence. A lady having expressed a desire to have the portrait of her canary in a ring, the last Prince de Conti requested she would allow him to give it to her; she accepted, on condition that no precious gems should be set in it. When the ring was brought to her, however, a diamond covered the painting. The lady had the brilliant taken out of the setting, and sent it back to the giver. The Prince, determined not to be gainsaid, caused the stone to be ground to dust, which he used to dry the ink of the letter he wrote to her on the subject."

Let us mention some of the most noted diamonds in the world. The largest one known, that of the Rajah of Matan, in Borneo, weighs three hundred and sixty-seven carats. It is egg-shaped and is of the finest water. Two large war-vessels, with all their guns, powder, and shot, and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money, were once refused for it. And yet its weight is only about three ounces!

The second in size is the _Orloff_, or _Grand Russian_, sometimes called the _Moon of the Mountain_, of one hundred and ninety-three carats. The Great Mogul once owned it. Then it passed by conquest into the possession of Nadir the Shah of Persia. In 1747 he was assassinated, and all the crown-jewels slipped out of the dead man's fingers,--a common incident to mortality. What became of the great diamond no one at that time knew, till one day a chief of the Anganians walked, mole-footed, into the presence of a rich Armenian gentleman in Balsora, and proposed to sell him (no lisping,--not a word to betray him) a large emerald, a splendid ruby, and the great Orloff diamond. Mr. Shafrass counted out fifty thousand piastres for the lot; and the chief folded up his robes and silently departed. Ten years afterwards the people of Amsterdam were apprised that a great treasure had arrived in their city, and could be bought, too. Nobody there felt rich enough to buy the great Orloff sparkler. So the English and Russian governments sent bidders to compete for the gem. The Empress Catharine offered the highest sum; and her agent, the Count Orloff, paid for it in her name four hundred and fifty thousand roubles, cash down, and a grant of Russian nobility! The size of this diamond is that of a pigeon's egg, and its lustre and water are of the finest: its shape is not perfect.

The _Grand Tuscan_ is next in order,--for many years held by the Medici family. It is now owned by the Austrian Emperor, and is the pride of the Imperial Court. It is cut as a rose, nine-sided, and is of a yellow tint, lessening somewhat its value. Its weight is one hundred and thirty-nine and a half carats; and its value is estimated at one hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred and eighty-eight pounds.

The most perfect, though not the largest, diamond in Europe is the _Regent_, which belongs to the Imperial diadem of France. Napoleon the First used to wear it in the hilt of his state-sword. Its original weight was four hundred and ten carats; but after it was cut as a brilliant, (a labor of two years, at a cost of three thousand pounds sterling,) it was reduced to one hundred and thirty-seven carats. It came from the mines of Golconda; and the thief who stole it therefrom sold it to the grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, when he was governor of a fort in the East Indies. Lucky Mr. Pitt pocketed one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds for his treasure, the purchaser being Louis XV. This amount, it is said, is only half its real value. However, as it cost the Governor, according to his own statement, some years after the sale, only twenty thousand pounds, his speculation was "something handsome." Pope had a fling at Pitt, in his poetical way, intimating a wrong with regard to the possession of the diamond; but we believe the transaction was an honest one. In the inventory of the crown-jewels, the Regent diamond is set down at twelve million francs!

The _Star of the South_ comes next in point of celebrity. It is the largest diamond yet obtained from Brazil; and it is owned by the King of Portugal. It weighed originally two hundred and fifty-four carats, but was trimmed down to one hundred and twenty-five. The grandfather of the present king had a hole bored in it, and liked to strut about on gala-days with the gem suspended around his neck. This magnificent jewel was found by three banished miners, who were seeking for gold during their exile. A great drought had laid dry the bed of a river, and there they discovered this lustrous wonder. Of course, on promulgating their great luck, their sentence was revoked immediately.

The world-renowned _Koh-i-noor_ next claims our attention.

A Venetian diamond-cutter (wretched, bungling Hortensio Borgis!) reduced the great _Koh-i-noor_ from its primitive weight--nine hundred carats--to two hundred and eighty. Tavernier saw this celebrated jewel two hundred years ago, not long after its discovery. It came into the possession of Queen Victoria in 1849, _three thousand years_, say the Eastern sages, after it belonged to Karna, the King of Anga! On the 16th of July, 1852, the Duke of Wellington superintended the commencement of the re-cutting of the famous gem, and for thirty-eight days the operation went on. Eight thousand pounds were expended in the cutting and polishing. When it was finished and ready to be restored to the royal keeping, the person (a celebrated jeweller) to whom the whole care of the work had been intrusted, allowed a friend to take it in his fingers for examination. While he was feasting his eyes over it, and turning it to the light in order to get the full force of its marvellous beauty, down it slipped from his grasp and fell upon the ground. The jeweller nearly fainted with alarm, and poor "Butterfingers" was completely jellified with fear. Had the stone struck the ground at a particular angle, it would have split in two, and been ruined forever.

Innumerable anecdotes cluster about this fine diamond. Having passed through the hands of various Indian princes, violence and fraud are copiously mingled up with its history. We quote one of Madame de Barrera's stories concerning it:----

"The King of Lahore having heard that the King of Cabul possessed a diamond that had belonged to the Great Mogul, the largest and purest known, he invited the fortunate owner to his court, and there, having him in his power, demanded his diamond. The guest, however, had provided himself against such a contingency with a perfect imitation of the coveted jewel. After some show of resistance, he reluctantly acceded to the wishes of his powerful host. The delight of Runjeet was extreme, but of short duration,--the lapidary to whom he gave orders to mount his new acquisition pronouncing it to be merely a bit of crystal. The mortification and rage of the despot were unbounded. He immediately caused the palace of the King of Cabul to be invested, and ransacked from top to bottom. But for a long while all search was vain; at last a slave betrayed the secret;--the diamond was found concealed beneath a heap of ashes. Runjeet Singh had it set in an armlet, between two diamonds, each the size of a sparrow's egg."

The _Shah of Persia_, presented to the Emperor Nicholas by the Persian monarch, is a very beautiful stone, irregularly shaped. Its weight is eighty-six carats, and its water and lustre are superb.

The various stories attached to the _Sancy_ diamond, the next in point of value, would occupy many pages. During four centuries it has been accumulating romantic circumstances, until it is now very difficult to give its true narrative. If Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, ever wore it suspended round his neck, he sported a magnificent jewel. If the Curate of Montagny bought it for a crown of a soldier who picked it up after the defeat of Granson, not knowing its value, the soldier was unconsciously cheated by the Curate. If a citizen of Berne got it out of the Curate's fingers for three crowns, he was a shrewd knave. De Barante says, that in 1492 (Columbus was then about making land in this hemisphere) this diamond was sold in Lucerne for five thousand ducats. After that, all sorts of incidents are related to have befallen it. Here is one of them.--Henry IV. was once in a strait for money. The Sieur de Sancy (who gave his name to the gem) wished to send the monarch his diamond, that he might raise funds upon it from the Jews of Metz. A trusty servant sets off with it, to brave the perils of travel, by no means slight in those rough days, and is told, in case of danger from brigands, to swallow the precious trust. The messenger is found dead on the road, and is buried by peasants. De Sancy, impatient that his man does not arrive, seeks for his body, takes it from the ground where it is buried, opens it, and recovers his gem! In some way not now known, Louis XV. got the diamond into his possession, and wore it at his coronation. In 1789, it disappeared from the crown-treasures, and no trace of it was discovered till 1830, when it was offered for sale by a merchant in Paris. Count Demidoff had a lawsuit over it in 1832; and as it is valued at a million of francs, it was worth quarrelling about.

The _Nassuck Diamond_, valued at thirty thousand pounds, is a magnificent jewel, nearly as large as a common walnut. Pure as a drop of dew, it ranked among the richest treasures in the British conquest of India.

What has become of the great triangular _Blue Diamond_, weighing sixty-seven carats, stolen from the French Court at the time of the great robbery of the crown-jewels? Alas! it has never been heard from. Three millions of francs represented its value; and no one, to this day, knows its hiding-place. What a pleasant morning's work it would be to unearth this gem from its dark corner, where it has lain _perdu_ so many years! The bells of Notre Dame should proclaim such good-fortune to all Paris.

But enough of these individual magnificos. Their beauty and rarity have attracted sufficient attention in their day. Yet we should like to handle a few of those Spanish splendors which Queen Isabel II. wore at the reception of the ambassadors from Morocco. That day she shone in diamonds alone to the amount of two million dollars! We once saw a monarch's sword, of which

"The jewelled hilt,
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,"

was valued at one hundred thousand dollars! But one of the pleasantest of our personal remembrances, connected with diamonds, is the picking up of a fine, lustrous gem which fell from O.B.'s violin-bow, (the gift of the Duke of Devonshire,) one night, after he had been playing his magic instrument for the special delight of a few friends. The tall Norwegian wrapped it in a bit of newspaper, when it was restored to him, and thrust it into his cigar-box! [O.B. sometimes carried his treasures in strange places. One day he was lamenting the loss of a large sum of money which he had received as the proceeds of a concert in New York. A week afterwards he found his missing nine hundred dollars stuffed away in a dark corner of one of his violin-cases.]

There is a very pretty diamond-story current in connection with the good Empress Eugénie. Madame de Barrera relates it in this wise.

"When the sovereign of France marries, by virtue of an ancient custom kept up to the present day, the bride is presented by the city of Paris with a valuable gift. Another is also offered at the birth of the first-born.

"In 1853, when the choice of His Majesty Napoleon III. raised the Empress Eugénie to the throne, the city of Paris, represented by the Municipal Commission, voted the sum of six hundred thousand francs for the purchase of a diamond necklace to be presented to Her Majesty.

"The news caused quite a sensation among the jewellers. Each was eager to contribute his finest gems to form the Empress's necklace,--a necklace which was to make its appearance under auspices as favorable as those of the famous _Queen's Necklace_ had been unpropitious. But on the 28th of January, two days after the vote of the Municipal Commission, all this zeal was disappointed; the young Empress having expressed a wish that the six hundred thousand francs should be used for the foundation of an educational institution for poor young girls of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

"The wish has been realized, and, thanks to the beneficent fairy in whose compassionate heart it had its origin, the diamond necklace has been metamorphosed into an elegant edifice, with charming gardens. Here a hundred and fifty young girls, at first, but now as many as four hundred, have been placed, and receive, under the management of those angels of charity called the _Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul_, an excellent education proportioned to their station, and fitting them to be useful members of society.

"The solemn opening of the Maison-Eugénie-Napoleon took place on the 1st of January, 1857.

"M. Veron, the _journaliste_, now deputy of the Seine, has given, in the 'Moniteur,' a very circumstantial account of this establishment. From it we borrow the following:--

"'The girls admitted are usually wretchedly clad; on their entrance, they receive a full suit of clothes. Almost all are pale, thin, weak children, to whom melancholy and suffering have imparted an old and careworn expression. But, thanks to cleanliness, to wholesome and sufficient food, to a calm and well-regulated life, to the pure, healthy air they breathe, the natural hues and the joyousness of youth soon reanimate the little faces; and with lithe, invigorated limbs, and happy hearts, these young creatures join merrily in the games of their new companions. They have entered the institution old; they will leave it young.'

"The Empress Eugénie delights in visiting the institution of the Faubourg St. Antoine. This is natural. Her Majesty cannot but feel pleasure in the contemplation of all she has accomplished by sacrificing a magnificent, but idle ornament to the welfare of so many beings rescued from misery and ignorance. These four hundred young girls will be so many animated, happy, and grateful jewels, constituting for Her Majesty in the present, and for her memory in the future, an ever new set of jewels, an immortal ornament, a truly celestial talisman.

"A fresco painting represents, in a hemicycle, the Empress in her bridal dress, offering to the Virgin a diamond necklace; young girls are kneeling around her in prayer; admiration and fervent faith are depicted on their brows."

A very large amount of the world's capital is represented in precious stones, and ninety per cent of that capital so invested is in diamonds. This was not always the case. Ancient millionnaires held their enormous jewelry-riches more in colored stones than is the custom now. Crystallized carbon has risen in the estimation of capitalists, and crystallized clay has gone down in the scale of value. If the diamond be the hardest known substance in the world's jewel-box, the pearl is by no means its near relation in that particular. The daughters of Stilicho slept undisturbed eleven hundred and eighteen years, with all their riches in sound condition, except the pearls that were found with their splendid ornaments. The other decorations sparkled in the light as brilliantly as ever; but the pearls crumbled into dust, as their owners had done centuries before. Eight hundred years before these ladies lived and wore pearls, a queen with "swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes" tried a beverage which cost, exclusive of the vinegar which partly composed it, the handsome little sum of something over eighty thousand pounds. Diamond and vinegar would not have mixed so prettily.

Pearls are perishable beauties, exquisite in their perfect state, but liable to accident from the nature of their delicate composition. Remote antiquity chronicles their existence, and immemorial potentates eagerly sought for them to adorn their persons. Pearl-fisheries in the Persian Gulf are older than the reign of Alexander; and the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Coast of Coromandel yielded their white wonders ages ago. Under the Ptolemies, in the time of the Caliphs, the pearl-merchant flourished, grew rich, and went to Paradise. To-day the pearl-diver is grubbing under the waves that are lapping the Sooloo Islands, the coast of Coromandel, and the shores of Algiers. In Ceylon he is busiest, and you may find him from the first of February to the middle of April risking his life in the perilous seas. His boat is from eight to ten tons burden, and without a deck. At ten o'clock at night, when the cannon fires, it is his signal to put off for the bank opposite Condatchy, which he will reach by daylight, if the weather be fair. Unless it is calm, he cannot follow his trade. As soon as light dawns, he prepares to descend. His diving-stone, to keep him at the bottom, is got ready, and, after offering up his devotions, he leaps into the water. Two minutes are considered a long time to be submerged, but some divers can hold out four or five minutes. When his strength is exhausted, he gives a signal by pulling the rope, and is drawn up with his bag of oysters. Appalling dangers compass him about. Sharks watch for him as he dives, and not infrequently he comes up maimed for life. It is recorded of a pearl-diver, that he died from over-exertion immediately after he reached land, having brought up with him a shell that contained a pearl of great size and beauty. Barry Cornwall has remembered the poor follow in song so full of humanity, that we quote his pearl-strung lyric entire.

"Within the midnight of her hair,
Half hidden in its deepest deeps,
A single, peerless, priceless pearl
(All filmy-eyed) forever sleeps.
Without the diamond's sparkling eyes,
The ruby's blushes, there it lies,
Modest as the tender dawn,
When her purple veil's withdrawn,--
The flower of gems, a lily cold and pale!
Yet what doth all avail,--
All its beauty, all its grace,
All the honors of its place?
He who plucked it from its bed,
In the far blue Indian ocean,
Lieth, without life or motion,
In his earthy dwelling,--dead!
And his children, one by one,
When they look upon the sun,
Curse the toil by which he drew
The treasure from its bed of blue.

"Gentle Bride, no longer wear,
In thy night-black, odorous hair,
Such a spoil! It is not fit
That a tender soul should sit
Under such accursed gem!
What need'st _thou_ a diadem,--
Thou, within whose Eastern eyes
Thought (a starry Genius) lies,--
Thou, whom Beauty has arrayed,--
Thou, whom Love and Truth have made
Beautiful,--in whom we trace
Woman's softness, angel's grace,
All we hope for, all that streams
Upon us in our haunted dreams?

"O sweet Lady! cast aside,
With a gentle, noble pride,
All to sin or pain allied!
Let the wild-eyed conqueror wear
The bloody laurel in his hair!
Let the black and snaky vine
Round the drinker's temples twine!
Let the slave-begotten gold
Weigh on bosoms hard and cold!
But be THOU forever known
By thy natural light alone!"

One of the best judges of pearls that ever lived, out of the regular trade, was no less a person than Caesar. He was a great connoisseur, and could tell at once, when he took a pearl in his hand, its weight and value. He gave one away worth a quarter of a million dollars. Servilia, the mother of Brutus, was the lady to whom he made the regal present.

Caligula, not satisfied with building ships of cedar with sterns inlaid with gems, had a pearl-collar made for a favorite horse! Pliny grows indignant as he chronicles the luxury of this Emperor.

"I have seen," says he, "Lollia Paulina, who was the wife of the Emperor Caligula,--and this not on the occasion of a solemn festival or ceremony, but merely at a supper of ordinary betrothals,--I have seen Lollia Paulina covered with emeralds and pearls, arranged alternately, so as to give each other additional brilliancy, on her head, neck, arms, hands, and girdle, to the amount of forty thousand sesterces, [£336,000 sterling,] the which value she was prepared to prove on the instant by producing the receipts. And these pearls came, not from the prodigal generosity of an imperial husband, but from treasures which had been the spoils of provinces. Marcus Lollius, her grandfather, was dishonored in all the East on account of the gifts he had extorted from kings, disgraced by Tiberius, and obliged to poison himself, that his grand-daughter might exhibit herself by the light of the _lucernae_ blazing with jewels."

Nero offered to Jupiter Capitolinus the first trimmings of his beard in a magnificent vase enriched with the costliest pearls.

Catherine de Medicis and Diane de Poitiers almost floated in pearls, their dresses being literally covered with them. The wedding-robe of Anne of Cleves was a rich cloth-of-gold, thickly embroidered with great flowers of large Orient pearls. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, had a wonderful lot of pearls among her jewels; and the sneaking manner in which Elizabeth got possession of them we will leave Miss Strickland, the biographer of Queens, to relate.

"If anything farther than the letters of Drury and Throgmorton be required to prove the confederacy between the English Government and the Earl of Moray, it will only be necessary to expose the disgraceful fact of the traffic of Queen Mary's costly _parure_ of pearls, her own personal property, which she had brought with her from France. A few days before she effected her escape from Lochleven Castle, the righteous Regent sent these, with a choice collection of her jewels, very secretly to London, by his trusty agent, Sir Nicholas Elphinstone, who undertook to negotiate their sale, with the assistance of Throgmorton, to whom he was directed for that purpose. As these pearls were considered the most magnificent in Europe, Queen Elizabeth was complimented with the first offer of them. 'She saw them yesterday, May 2nd,' writes Bodutel La Forrest, the French ambassador at the Court of England, 'in the presence of the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, and pronounced them to be of unparalleled beauty.' He thus describes them: 'There are six cordons of large pearls, strung as paternosters; but there are five-and-twenty separate from the rest, much finer and larger than those which are strung; these are for the most part like black _muscades_. They had not been here more than three days, when they were appraised by various merchants; this Queen wishing to have them at the sum named by the jeweller, who could have made his profit by selling them again. They were at first shown to three or four working jewellers and lapidaries, by whom they were estimated at three thousand pounds sterling, (about ten thousand crowns,) and who offered to give that sum for them. Several Italian merchants came after them, who valued them at twelve thousand crowns, which is the price, as I am told, this Queen Elizabeth will take them at. There is a Genoese who saw them after the others, and said they were worth sixteen thousand crowns; but I think they will allow her to have them for twelve thousand.' 'In the mean time,' continues he, in his letter to Catherine of Medicis, 'I have not delayed giving your Majesty timely notice of what was going on, though I doubt she will not allow them to escape her. The rest of the jewels are not near so valuable as the pearls. The only thing I have heard particularly described is a piece of unicorn richly carved and decorated.' Mary's royal mother-in-law of France, no whit more scrupulous than her good cousin of England, was eager to compete with the latter for the purchase of the pearls, knowing that they were worth nearly double the sum at which they had been valued in London. Some of them she had herself presented to Mary, and especially wished to recover; but the ambassador wrote to her in reply, that 'he had found it impossible to accomplish her desire of obtaining the Queen of Scots' pearls, for, as he had told her from the first, they were intended for the gratification of the Queen of England, who had been allowed to purchase them at her own price, and they were now in her hands.'

"Inadequate though the sum for which her pearls were sold was to their real value, it assisted to turn the scale against their real owner.

"In one of her letters to Elizabeth, supplicating her to procure some amelioration of the rigorous confinement of her captive friends, Mary alludes to her stolen jewels:--'I beg also,' says she, 'that you will prohibit the sale of the rest of my jewels, which the rebels have ordered in their Parliament, for you have promised that nothing should be done in it to my prejudice. I should be very glad, if they were in safer custody, for they are not meat proper for traitors. Between you and me it would make little difference, and I should be rejoiced, if any of them happened to be to your taste, that you would accept them from me as offerings of my good-will.'

"From this frank offer it is apparent that Mary was not aware of the base part Elizabeth had acted, in purchasing her magnificent _parure_ of pearls of Moray, for a third part of their value."

One of the most famous pearls yet discovered (there may be shells down below that hide a finer specimen) is the beautiful _Peregrina_. It was fished up by a little negro boy in 1560, who obtained his liberty by opening an oyster. The modest bivalve was so small that the boy in disgust was about to pitch it back into the sea. But he thought better of his rash determination, pulled the shells asunder, and, lo, the rarest of priceless pearls! [_Moral._ Don't despise little oysters.] La Peregrina is shaped like a pear, and is of the size of a pigeon's egg. It was presented to Philip II. by the finder's master, and is still in Spain. No sum has ever determined its value. The King's jeweller named five hundred thousand dollars, but that paltry amount was scouted as ridiculously small.

There is a Rabbinical story which aptly shows the high estimate of pearls in early ages, only one object in Nature being held worthy to be placed above them:--

"On approaching Egypt, Abraham locked Sarah in a chest, that none might behold her dangerous beauty. But when he was come to the place of paying custom, the collectors said, 'Pay us the custom': and he said, 'I will pay the custom.' They said to him, 'Thou carriest clothes': and he said, 'I will pay for clothes.' Then they said to him, 'Thou carriest gold': and he answered them, 'I will pay for my gold.' On this they further said to him, 'Surely thou bearest the finest silk': he replied, 'I will pay custom for the finest silk.' Then said they, 'Surely it must be pearls that thou takest with thee': and he only answered, 'I will pay for pearls.' Seeing that they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not willing to pay custom, they said, 'It cannot be but thou open the box, and let us see what is within.' So they opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was illumined by the lustre of Sarah's beauty,--far exceeding even that of pearls."

Shakspeare, who loved all things beautiful, and embalmed them so that their lustre could lose nothing at his hands, was never tired of introducing the diamond and the pearl. They were his favorite ornaments; and we intended to point out some of the splendid passages in which he has used them. But we have room now for only one of those priceless sentences in which he has set the diamond and the pearl as they were never set before. No kingly diadem can boast such jewels as glow along these lines from "Lear":--

"You have seen
Sunshine and rain at one: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day: Those happy smiles
That played on her ripe lip seemed not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
_As pearls from diamonds dropp'd._"

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

1. _Lis Oubreto_ de ROUMANILLE. Avignon. 1860. 12mo.

2. T. AUBANEL. _La Miougrano Entreduberto._ Avec Traduction littérale en regard. Avignon: J. Roumanille. 1860. 12mo.

3. _Mirèio._ Pouèmo Prouvençau de FREDERI MISTRAL. Avec la Traduction littérale en regard. Avignon: J. Roumanille. 1859. 8vo.

4. _Las Papillôtos_ de JACQUES JASMIN, de l'Académie d'Agen, Maître ès Jeux-Floraux, Grand Prix de l'Académie Française. Édition populaire, avec le Français en regard, et ornée d'un Portrait. De 1822 à 1858. Paris: Firmin Didot, Frères & Cie. 1860. 12mo.

5. _Lés Piaoulats d'un Reïpetit._ Recueil de Poésies Patoises. Par J.B. Veyre, Instituteur à Saint-Simon (Cantal). Aurillac: Imprimerie de L. Bonnet-Picut. 1860. 8vo.

Few persons, when they consider the present greatness and prosperity of the French Empire, bear in mind the heterogeneous elements of which it is composed. For us, Paris is France, and the literature of the realm is comprised in the words, "Paris publications." We think not of the millions of Frenchmen to whom the language of the capital is a sealed letter,--of the Germans of Alsatia, the Flemings of the extreme North-East, the Bretons of the peninsula of Finisterre, the Basques, the Catalans of the mountains of Roussillon, and, more numerous than all these, the fourteen millions of the thirty-seven departments south of the Loire. These speak, to this day, with fewer modifications than have taken place in any other of the European languages during the same lapse of time, the very tongue in which wrote Bertran de Born and Pierre Vidal, the idiom in which Dante and Petrarca found some of their happiest inspirations, and which, we are told, Tasso envied for its poetic capabilities.

True, the Provinces of Gascony, Provence, Auvergne may be traversed by the stranger almost without his suspecting that other than the French, more or less badly spoken, is in common use. In hotels and shops he will hear nothing else.

The larger towns in direct communication with the capital, and all that is purely exterior in the people, are becoming more and more French every day. But in the family interior, far from the noise of affairs, the bustle of towns, in hamlets, among the vine-growers and tenders of the silk-worm, in the mountains and retired valleys, the home-tongue is again at ease. Simple, ingenuous, amber-like in its sunny tints, it is a reflection of that ardent poetical imagination which made the courts of the Counts of Toulouse the nurseries of modern poesy, when the rest of Europe was little else than one wrangling battle-field. Neither the exterminating crusade against the Albigenses, after which the idiom of Provence was wellnigh stigmatized as heretical, nor the civil and religious wars of the seventeenth century, nor even the _dragonnades_ of Louis XIV., have been able to outroot it. The levelling edicts of the first French Revolution were powerless against it. The Provençal, or Langue d'Oc, if you will, the Gascon, the Auvergnat, are spoken to this day in their respective provinces, universally spoken by the people, who in many instances do not understand French at all. They must be preached to in their own dialect. They have their songs, their theatre even.

Nor must this be understood as referring only to the lower strata of society. The better classes, even, retain a fondness for their mother-tongue which years of residence in Paris will not obliterate. In their very French, they still retain the inflections, the tones of the South,--a measured cadence in the phrase, which the Parisian uniformly styles _gasconner_. They feel ill at ease in what they call the cold-mannered speech of the _Franchiman_. In the words of one of their poets, Mistral, who has proved that he was no less a master of the academic forms and rules than of the riches and power of his own Avignonais:--"Those who have not lived at the South, and especially in the midst of our rural population, can have no idea of the incompatibility, the insufficiency, the poverty of the language of the North in regard to our manners, our needs, our organization. The French language, transplanted to Provence, seems like the cast-off clothes of a Parisian dandy adapted to the robust shoulders of a harvester bronzed by the Southern sun."

The Provençal, in its two principal divisions, the Gascon and Langue d'Oc, is the current idiom south of the Loire. The South-West Provinces had, in the seventeenth century, no mean poet in Godelin; and in our own day, Jasmin has found a host of followers. The inhabitants of the South-East, however, the more immediate retainers of the language of the Troubadours, save in a few drinking-songs and Christmas carols, had forgotten the strains that once resounded beyond the limits of Provence and had first awaked the poetic emulation of Spain and Italy. The princess of song, stung by the envious spirit of persecution in the Albigensian wars, had slept for centuries, and the thick hedge of forgetfulness had grown rank about the language and its treasures. What Raynouard, Diez, Mahn, Fauriel, and others have done to bring to light again the unedited texts was little better than an autopsy. A living, breathing poet was wanting to reanimate by his touch the poesy that had slept so long. That poet was Roumanille.

The Minnesingers have found heirs and continuators in the modern writers of Germany. Side by side with the increasing tendency to unity in all national literature is working the force of races confounded under one political banner, to assert their existence as such. Congresses have shaped new kingdoms; but they have not reached or removed the limits of nationalities that have each their expression in song, whether in Moldavia or among the Czechs of Bohemia. The regeneration of local idioms, which is fast working its way from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, was first undertaken in Provence, at the instigation of Roumanille. The son of a gardener of St. Remy, he was first struck with the insufficiency of French literature for his immediate countrymen, when, on his return from college, seeking to recite some of his earlier poems in the language of Racine to his aged mother, she failed to understand them. For her he translated, and found that his own Provençal was richer, more copious and melodious than the French itself, and, if less finical and restrained by grammatical forms, more pliant for the poet, and better answering the exigencies of primitive, spontaneous expression of feeling. From that moment his efforts were unceasingly directed towards the reintegration of his mother-tongue, which had so long played but the part of a Cinderella among the Romanic nations.

His poems, collected in 1847, under the title of "Margarideto," (Daisies,) were hailed by his countrymen with their habitual national enthusiasm. Nor did he remain inactive during the Revolution of 1848, addressing the people in home-phrase in several small volumes of prose. In 1852, he sent forth a call to his brother-writers, the _felibre_, who had joined with him in his efforts. The result was the publication of "Li Prouvençalo," a charming selection from those modern Troubadours who in all ranks of society sing, because sing they must, in bright and sunny Provence, and who in very deed find poetry

"In the forge's dust and ashes, in the tissues
of the loom."

The call of Roumanille was the signal for a revival. Since that time, he himself, now a publisher in Avignon, has steadily watched and fostered the movement. The new literature has rapidly gone beyond its home-limits. Within the present year, Paris has republished several of the most noted works.

The volume which has called forth these remarks, "Lis Oubreto," comprises the poems of M. Roumanille,--"Li Margarideto," "Li Nouvè," "Li Sounjarello," "La Part de Dieu," "Li Flour de Sauvi." They are characterized by an elevation in the thoughts and a religious purity of sentiment, qualities which, it has been urged, and justly too, were lacking in many of the former productions in various dialects of France. We call the poetry of Roumanille elevated, yet it always addresses itself to the people of Provence, and borrows its images from the many-colored life of those to whom it speaks; religious, but simple and ingenuous, with a tinge of mysticism,--not the mysticism that seeks the good in dreamy inaction, as in some of the Spanish authors, nor has it the obscure tinge of the transcendental English school. The religion of Roumanille is active, not dogmatic; he incites to _do_, rather than discuss or dream the good. There is a health, a vigor, an earnestness, in this spontaneous poesy of an idiom which six centuries ago was the language of courts, and now sings the song of toil. Side by side with the over-cultured language of the Parisian, it seems so free and frank! Where the one is hampered for fear of sinning, the other, buoyant and elastic, treads freely and fears not to be too ingenuous.

Roumanille's poems have not been translated; it is hardly likely they ever will be,--at least, the greater number. They were not made for Paris. They are not at ease in a French garb,--nor, for that matter, in any other than their own diaphanous, sun-tinted, vowelly Provençal, unless they could find their expression in some _folk-speech_, as the Germans say, that could utter things of daily life without euphuistic windings, without fear of ridicule for things of home expressed in home-words.

As characterizing the nature and tendency of the new poetry, we subjoin a translation of "Li Crecho," (The Infant Asylums,) of which M. Sainte-Beuve, of the French Academy, one whose judgment as literary critic could be little biased in favor of the _naïve_ graces of the original, said,--"The piece is worthy of the ancient Troubadours. The angel of the asylums and of little children in his celestial sadness could not be disavowed by the angels of Klopstock, nor by that of Alfred de Vigny."

"Li Crecho" was recited by the author at the inauguration of the Infant Asylum of Avignon, the 20th of November, 1851, and forms part of the sheaf of poems entitled "Li Flour de Sauvi."

I.

"Among the choirs of Seraphim, whom God has created to sing eternally, transported with love, 'Glory, glory to the Father!'--among the joys of Paradise, one oftentimes, far from the happy singers, went thoughtful away.

"And his snow-white forehead inclined towards our world, as droops a flower that has no moisture in summer. Day by day he grew more dreamy. If sadness, when in God's glory, could torment the heart, I should say that this fair angel was pining with sorrow.

"Of what did he dream thus, and in secret? Why was he not of the feast? Why, alone among angels, as one that had sinned, did he bow the head?"

II.

"Lo! he has just knelt at the feet of God. What will he say? What will he do? To see and hear him, his brethren interrupt their song of praise."

III.

"'When Jesus, thy child, wept,--when he shivered with cold in the manger of Bethlehem,--it was my smile that consoled him, my wings that sheltered him, with my warm breath did I comfort him.

"'And since then, O God, when a child weeps, in my pitying heart his voice resounds. Therefore forever now am I sick at heart,--therefore, O Lord, am I ever thoughtful.

"'On earth, O God, I have something to do. Let me descend there. There are so many babes, poor milk-lambs, who, shivering with cold, weep and wail far from the breasts, far from the kisses of their mothers! In warm rooms will I shelter them,--will cover and tend them,--will nurse and caress them,--will lull them to rest. Instead of one mother, they shall each have twenty that shall give them suck and soothe them to sleep.'"

IV.

"And with heart and hand did the angels applaud,--a tremor of joy shot through the stars of heaven,--and, unfolding his pinions, with the rapidity of lightning the angel descended. The road-side smiled with flowers, as he passed,--and mothers trembled for joy; for infant-asylums arose wherever the child-angel trod."

One of the first to respond to the call of Roumanille for the composition of the selection "Li Prouvençalo" was Th. Aubanel, also of Avignon. The "Segaire" (Mowers) and "Lou 9 Thermidor" made it plain, that, of the thirty names, that of the young printer would soon take a prominent place among the revivers of Southern letters. And now, eight years later, the promise of M. René Taillandier, in his introduction to the selection, has become reality.

"La Miougrano Entreduberto" (The Opened Pomegranate) is printed with an accompanying French translation. Mistral, the brother-poet and friend of the author, thus announces the poems:--

"The pomegranate is of its nature wilder than other trees. It loves to grow in pebbly elevations (_clapeirolo_) in the full sun-rays, far from man and nearer to God. There alone, in the scorching summer-beams, it expands in secret its blood-red flowers. Love and the sun fecundate its bloom. In the crimson chalices thousands of coral-grains germ spontaneously, like a thousand fair sisters all under the same roof.

"The swollen pomegranate holds imprisoned as long as it can the roseate seeds, the thousand blushing sisters. But the birds of the moor speak to the solitary tree, saying,--'What wilt thou do with the seeds? Even now comes the autumn, even now comes the winter, that chases us beyond the hills, beyond the seas.....And shall it be said, O wild pomegranate, that we have left Provence without seeing thy beautiful coral-grains, without having a glimpse of thy thousand virgin daughters?'

"Then, to satisfy the envious birdlings of the moor, the pomegranate slowly half-opens its fruit; the thousand vermeil seeds glitter in the sun; the thousand timorous sisters with rosy cheeks peep through the arched window: and the roguish birds come in flocks and feast at ease on the beautiful coral-grains; the roguish lovers devour with kisses the fair blushing sisters.

"Aubanel--and you will say as I do, when you have read his book--is a wild pomegranate-tree. The Provençal public, whom his first poems had pleased so much, was beginning to say,--'But what is our Aubanel doing, that we no longer hear him sing?'"

Then follows an exposition of the hopeless passion of the poet,--how he took for motto,

"Quau canto,
Soun mau encanto."

Hence the three books of poems now before us,--"The Book of Love," "Twilight," and "The Book of Death." "The Book of Love," "a thing excessively rare," as we are told in the Preface, "but this one written in good faith," opens with a couplet that is a key to the whole volume:--

"I am sick at heart,
And _will_ not be cured."

We subjoin a literal translation of the eleventh song, line for line:--

De-la-man-d'eilà de la mar,
Dins mis ouro de pantaiage,
Souvènti-fes iéu fau un viage,
Iéu fau souvènt un viage amar,
De-la-man-d'eilà, de la mar."
etc., etc.

"Far away, beyond the seas,
In my hours of reverie,
Oftentimes I make a voyage,
I often make a bitter voyage,
Far away, beyond the seas.

"Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles,
With the ships I glide away,
Whose long masts pierce the sky;
Towards my loved one do I go,
Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles.

"With the great white clouds sailing on,
Driven by the wind, their master-shepherd,
The great clouds which before the stars
Pass onwards like white flocks,
With the clouds I go sailing on.

"With the swallows I take my flight,
The swallows returning to the sun;
Towards fair days do they go, quick, quick;
And I, quick, quick, towards my love,
With the swallows take my flight.

"Oh, I am very sick for home,
Sick for the home that my love haunts!
Far from that foreign country,
As the bird far from its nest,
I am very sick for home.

"From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters,
Like a corse thrown to the seas,
In dreams am I borne onward
To the feet of her that's dear,
From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters.

"On the shores I am there, dead!
My love in her arms supports me;
Speechless she gazes and weeps,
Lays her hand upon my heart,
And suddenly I live again!

"Then I clasp her, then I fold her
In my arms: 'I have suffered enough!
Stay, stay! I _will_ not die!'
And as a drowning one I seize her,
And fold her in my arms.

"Far away, beyond the seas,
In my hours of reverie,
Oftentimes I make a voyage,
I often make a bitter voyage,
Far away, beyond the seas."

As may easily be seen, Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his own people alone. His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art of its sister, the French. There are innumerable exquisite passages scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the figurative comparison of the prefacer, when he tells us that "the coral-grains of the 'Opened Pomegranate' will become in Provence the chaplet of lovers."

If Roumanille and Aubanel contented themselves with the publication of poems of no very ambitious length, the author of "Mirèio" aimed directly at enriching his language at the outset with an epic. He has given us in twelve cantos the song of Provence. He makes us see and feel the life of Languedoc,--traverse the Crau, that Arabia Petrasa of France,--see the Rhone, and the fair daughters of Arles, in their picturesque costumes,--see the wild bulls of the Camargo, the Pampas of the Mediterranean. We are among the growers of the silk-worm; we hear the home-songs and talks of the Mas, listen to the people's legends and tales of witchery, and can study the Middle-Age spirit that still in these regions endows every shrine with miracles, as we follow the pilgrimage to the chapel of the Three Marys.

"Mirèio" is all Provence living and breathing before us in a poem. No wonder, then, that, in the present dearth of poetry in France, this epic or idyl, call it as you will, was received with acclamations. M. René Taillandier has consecrated to it one of his most masterly articles in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Lamartine has devoted to it a whole _entretien_ in his "Cours de Littérature." It was discussed, quoted, translated in all the journals of the capital. We may revert to it at greater length in a future number of the "Atlantic."

The name of Jasmin, the harbor-poet of Agen, is already familiar to the English public. Professor Longfellow has translated his "Blind Girl of Castel-Cuillé." His name is known in Paris as well, perhaps, as that of any other living French poet, if we except Lamartine and Victor Hugo. Accompanied with a French translation, his principal poems, "Mous Soubenis," "L'Abuglo de Castel-Cuillé," "Francouneto," "Maltro l'Innoucento," "Lous Dus Frays Bessous," "La Semmâno d'un Fil," have been read as much north of the Loire as south.

"The Curl-Papers"--for thus he styles his works--having been translated into German and English, the reputation of the author may be called European. The forty maintainers of the Floral Games of Clémence Isaure at Toulouse awarded him the title of _Maître ès Jeux-Floraux_. His progress through the South was marked by ovations, and every town, from Marseilles to Bordeaux, hastened to recognize the modern Troubadour. Happier than most of his predecessors, Jasmin receives his laurels in season, and can wear the crowns that are presented him. The "Papillôtos" were formerly scattered in three costly volumes; they have now been collected in one handsome duodecimo, with an accompanying French translation of the principal pieces,--a translation which called from Ampère the remark,--_"A défaut des vers de Jasmin, on ferait cent lieues pour entendre cette prose-là!"_