According to legend, this beautiful diamond known as Hope (Hope) once adorned the forehead of an Indian god, from whom it was stolen by a Hindu priest. The priest was caught and tortured for his misdeeds.
It is said that an imposing gemstone carries a deadly curse. He later appeared in Europe in 1642. at the French merchant Jean Babtista Tefernier. He made a substantial profit from the sale of the diamond, but allowed his wasteful son to spend most of that money. He set out for India to regain his happiness but on the way he was attacked by rabid dogs and torn to pieces.
The diamond then came to the French King Louis XIV and his wife Maria Antonella, who reduced the gem from 112.5 carats to 67.5. Yet this act, did not affect the curse. Nicholas Fouquet, a French government official, loaned him for a state ball. Very soon after, he was accused of embezzlement and sentenced to life in prison, where he died. Princess de Lambelle, who regularly wore a diamond, was beaten to death in a rush of Parisian crowd. The king himself died poor and overthrown as his kingdom turned to ruin. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette died under the guillotine.
In 1830, the stone that is today a historical treasure was bought by London banker Henry Thomas Hope for $ 150,000. The stone showed its evil temper again. The Hopes ’family fortune suddenly melted away and the only grandson died miserable and poor until another heir finally sold the haunted diamond. Over the next 16 years, the Hope diamond moved from owner to owner, from Frenchman Jacques Colete who committed suicide to Russian Prince Ivan Kannitovitsky who was assassinated.
In 1908, Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid paid $ 400,000 for the diamond and donated it to his favorite concubine, Surbayi. Within a year, Hamid stabbed Surbay to death, and he lost his reign. The next to possess the malignant diamond was Simon Montharides who was killed by a carriage that overturned, killing both his wife and underage daughter.
The diamond, with its curse, also found its way to American financial tycoon Ned McLean, who paid the diamond with a good deal for only $ 154,000. His son Vincent was soon killed in a car accident, and his daughter died of an overdose. His wife became addicted to morphine, and McLean himself died in a mental institution. Mrs. McLean died in 1947 and left a cursed stone as a legacy to her six grandchildren.
Two years later, the McLean family sold the diamond to Harry Winston, a well-known gem merchant. Winston left the stone at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it is still located today.
The stone may not carry its curse on institutions as on people. And perhaps the evil fate of the stone died with Evalyn McLean, one of McLean’s six grandchildren. She died in her Dallas apartment.
