Hope Diamond

The mystery of the Hope Diamond has captured the imaginations of the curious for over 100 years. Very few other gems in the world have the fame, or perhaps more rightly written, infamy, than the famous Hope Diamond. Today the Hope Diamond is safely housed--off the neck and on a podium--in the secure walls of the Smithsonian Institute. The first record of sale of the Hope Diamond is dated many centuries back, to 1668, where at first it was merely another jewel in the great collection of the French Treasury. However, though the enormous blue gem passed through many hands for the next several hundred years, its real legend only begins to grow shortly after 1900. A wealthy Sultan was now the owner of the diamond, and he allowed it to sparkle at the throat of his favorite at court. The legend goes that, alas, she was stabbed to death while wearing it, and the Sultan put it up for auction in 1909 so that he would never have to be reminded of her beauty and her horrible death again. Pierre Cartier purchased it, and spun the tragic tale with great flair to one of the most stylish women of Washington D.C., Mrs. Evelyn Walsh McClain. She decided to buy the stone, despite the warnings of friends and strangers. She wore it everywhere she went, believing that the very fact that it had been unlucky for others meant that it must be just the opposite for her, since she perceived herself to the 'exceptional' in every way.Though she may indeed have been an exceptional woman, fate did not spare her much. Her first born son was killed at the age of 9. Her husband ran off with another woman and then lost the entire fortune. Her eldest daughter died from a overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 25. She herself died an alcoholic in a sanitarium. Luckily, the Hope diamond was soon after placed safely in the Smithsonian, so no others should hopefully befall the same fate.