The following podcast may not be for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. In the span of human history,
the deadly sins of theft and greed slither through time,
unchanging, unrelenting. Like hungry wolves in the night,
some humans want what glitters, what tempts, and what belongs to
others. But beware, for some treasures
carry consequences, and the fingers that grasp too greedily
might find themselves caught in a trap from which there is no
escape. The air grows heavy as we
venture into this dark tail of the Hope Diamond, a stone so
mesmerizing yet deadly that broken bodies mark its path
through history. We will peel back the veil of
time to expose its blood soaked legacy.
Join me for a curse that spans over centuries, leaving a trail
of death behind. Our journey begins with the most
infamous gem in history, the Hope Diamond.
Resting in the Smithsonian today, this 45 carat blue
diamond sparkles with an innocent beauty, but it's past
is anything but innocent. Legend has it that the diamond
carries a curse, bestowing a deadly fate upon anyone who
dares to touch it. Its exact whereabouts of where
it came from remain a mystery shrouded in the mists of time.
Some believe it was unearthed in a volcanic eruption, while
others claim it was discovered in the cooler mines of Golkonda,
India. The diamonds discovery marked
the beginning of a curse that would echo through centuries.
The precious stone, gleaming with an otherworldly light, was
set as an all seeing eye in the statue of a Hindu goddess, Sita,
until Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a traveling French merchant with
darkness in his heart, permitted the unthinkable in 1666.
Undercover of night, he pried the sacred 115 carat blue
diamond from its divine resting place, leaving an empty eye
socket that seemed to weep in the moonlight.
The locals, their fury mixing with ancient mystical knowledge,
Wove occurs so potent it would follow the Blue Diamond and its
future owners like a hungry ghost, promising torment to any
mortal who dared claim it as their own.
Jean Baptiste named the diamond after himself.
While it was difficult to confirm anything from the 1600s,
it is said after he sold the diamond, he died from a fever
and wild dogs ate his remains. John Baptiste had brought the
diamond from India to Europe. King Louis the 14th bought the
diamond and had it cut. He placed it among the French
Crown Jewels and named it the French Blue.
The French Crown Jewels are a collection of jewels that
symbolized royal power in France.
King Louis the 14th loaned them to Nicholas Fouquet, the
Superintendent of finances in France, but shortly after the
king accused Nicholas of embezzlement, he was sentenced
to death and executed. As for King Louis the 14th, he
died a very painful death from a gangrene infection.
The Blue Diamond was eventually given to King Louis the 16th and
his queen, Marie Antoinette. King Louis the 16th was publicly
executed on January 21st, 1793. His queen, Marie Antoinette, was
imprisoned in a temple before being transferred to the
concierge, a former palace in Paris that was transformed into
a prison. She spent her final days being
insulted and humiliated in the shadowy confines of her prison
cell. Marie Antoinette's prized
diamond was passed on to the safekeeping of Princess Marie
Louise, her most devoted confidante.
But fate had woven a far more sinister destiny for the
Princess than mere guardianship of a gem.
A frenzied mob descended upon her like wolves to their prey,
the air filled with sickening screams.
While she was beaten with a hammer, her screams drowned by
the crowd's savage roars, they tore her body apart with
primitive fury, disemboweled her on the cobblestone St. and then
they severed her head from her shoulders.
But the mob's bloodlust wasn't yet seated.
In a final act of unspeakable cruelty, they mounted her once
beautiful head upon a Pike. They paraded it through the
streets to Marie Antoinette's prison window, a grotesque
trophy of revolution forced before Marie Antoinette's eyes
of a woman she loved dearly. While their deaths most likely
came as a result of the French Revolution, some say it was the
curse of the Blue Diamond. During the bloody days of the
French Revolution, chaos led to the theft of the diamond.
The diamond had vanished into the shadows and later resurfaced
into the hands of a Dutch jeweler, Wilhelm Falls.
Under his blade, the 115 carat stone was transformed, stripped
to a mere 45 carats. The mystery of how Falls
acquired this cursed treasure died with him when his own son,
consumed by greed, murdered his father in cold blood and stole
the diamond, adding another chapter to its cursed legacy.
By 1839, the cursed jewel found its way into the glittering
collection of Henry Philip Hope, a wealthy Dutch born banker
prowling a London's elite circles.
His family fortune flowed from the powerful Hope and Company
Bank Empire. He gave the diamond the name it
bears today, the Hope Diamond. Perhaps unwittingly, he branded
the stone with cruel irony, for Hope was the last thing this
cursed gem brought to its owners.
In a final twist of fate, the diamond's inclusion in Hope's
meticulous gem catalogue only served to document its dark
journey through history, like a Ledger of doom marking each I'll
fated hand it passed through. When Henry passed away, the
jewel passed through the Hope family, including nephews and
grandsons. But the final family member to
own it was Lord France's Hope, who sold the blue diamond to pay
his financial debts. It passed through the hands of
Joseph Frankels in New York, who in turn also sold the diamond to
pay debts. Others who owned it were Salem
Habib, Chapter Rosineau and Simon Mann Carite, a Greek
merchant who sold the diamond to Pierre Cartier in 1910.
After Simon sold the diamond, he drove his car off a Cliff with
his wife and child inside. In 1910, fate drew another
unsuspecting soul towards the cursed diamond when it gleamed
from its perch at Cartiers in Paris, catching the eye of
American socialite Evelyn Walsh McLean, the wife of Washington
Post owner and publisher Edward Beal McLean.
Evelyn was no stranger to power and luxury, but this stone
promised something more sinister.
Though she dismissed the original setting as unworthy,
the diamond spell had already taken hold.
The transaction that sealed her destiny occurred in 1911 within
the ink stained walls of the Washington Post offices.
Edward, perhaps blind to the darkness that shadowed the Gems
history, presented it to his wife as the ultimate token of
affection. But love, like everything else,
touched by the Hope diamond, carried its price.
Evelyn, defiant in the face of whispered warnings, draped
herself in what many believed to be her own doom.
She flaunted the diamond at lavish gatherings, its blue fire
dancing at her throat while friends and family begged her to
part with it. Their desperate pleas for her to
sell the cursed jewel before it claimed her as another victim
were ignored. Like so many before, Evelyn
refused to listen, wearing her feet like a badge of honor at
every soiree and social gathering.
Daring the diamonds dark legacy to touch her, she assured
friends and family she was safe as she had the diamond blessed
by a priest. During Evelyn's ownership of the
diamond, she suffered many hardships.
Her husband left her for another woman, she lost her son in a car
accident, her daughter passed from a drug overdose, and the
Washington Post went bankrupt, forcing her to sell it.
Evelyn passed, owing large debt. Her surviving children sold the
diamond to the American jeweler Harry Winston.
It was shown at many exhibits for nearly a decade.
When Harry Winston finally mailed the diamond to the
Smithsonian as a donation in 1958, he paid $2.44 for postage
and $155 to ensure the delivery. It is said that the mailman,
James Todd, who delivered the diamond, suffered a leg injury
in a truck accident shortly after the delivery.
The day the infamous Hope Diamond rests behind bulletproof
glass at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington,
DC, its violent history seemingly tamed by the sterile
hulls of the Smithsonian. Valued at a staggering 250
million, this notorious gem draws millions of mesmerized
visitors each year, making it the museum's most magnetic
attraction. Perhaps it's not just the
Diamonds legendary beauty that pulls people close, but the dark
whispers of its past, the trail of destruction it left across
centuries of human desire. The stone glows with an
otherworldly blue fire under the museum lights, deceptively
peaceful now in its velvet lined display.
Yet some say that even here is safely locked away in the
National Gem and Mineral collection.
The Hope Diamond hasn't lost its power.
It's merely waiting, collecting new admirers, as if gathering
energy for its next chapter. After all, 250 million might
tempt another's soul to test whether the curse still lingers
in those crystalline depths. From John Baptiste to Louis the
16th and Marie Antoinette, the trail of destruction followed
this mesmerizing stones for centuries.
Even now, in our modern age of science and reason, visitors
report feeling an inexplicable chill when standing by its
display. The Hope Diamond continues its
vigil behind 3 inches of bulletproof glass in the
Smithsonian, with the guards armed and watching.
But one must wonder if all that security is really meant to keep
thieves out, or to keep something far more sinister
contained within. Perhaps some curses never truly
die. Maybe they just merely wait,
patient as the diamonds themselves, watching through
facets that have witnessed centuries of human suffering.
So until next time, inspect those family heirlooms with wary
eyes. And remember, when a stranger
offers you a gem of unearthly color, run.
Run as if your very soul depends on it, because it just might.