The Regent

The Regent Diamond is a diamond which is on display in the Louvre in Paris. In 1698, a slave found the 410 carat rough diamond in a Golkonda mine in India and concealed it inside of a large wound in his leg. An English sea captain stole the diamond from the slave after killing him and sold it to an Indian merchant.

It is said that Governor Thomas Pitt acquired it from a merchant in Madras in 1701. Pitt then sold it to the French Regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orleans in 1717 for a nice sum of money. The royals used the stone in many ways; this included setting the diamond into the crown of Louis XV for his coronation in 1722. It was then later set into a new crown in 1775 for the coronation of Louis XVI. Sometime later it was then an adornment in the hat of Marie Antoinette.

In 1792 during the revolutionary furor in Paris, "Le Regent," as the diamond came to be known, was stolen along with other crown jewels of France, but it was later recovered thankfully, after being discovered hidden in some roof timbers.

As of 1887, the “Le Regent” was mounted in a Greek diadem designed for Empress Eugenie and it remains in the French Royal Treasury at the Louvre

 

 

 

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