Of all the well-known big diamonds the most infamous is the Hope Diamond, a blue colored beauty that was dubbed “The Killing Stone.”
According to the legend the hope was placed in front of a Buddha statue when it was stolen by a warrior, Tavernier, and a curse that foretold bad luck and death befell on the stone ever since. For this transgression, the legend says, Tavernier was torn apart by wild dogs on a trip to Russia just after he had sold the diamond. This was the first horrible death attributed to the curse. But many others would follow…
The businessman who had acquired the stone sold it to king Louis XV. Soon after that, the businessman got poor, contracted a mysterious disease and died suffering terrible convulsions.
When Louis XV died, his grandson, Louis XVI, became king with Marie Antoinette as his queen. According to the legend, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were beheaded during the French Revolution because of the blue diamond’s curse.
After the French Revolution, the diamond was hidden in a government building, where it was stolen in 1791. Six years later, the thieves were condemned to the death penalty.
In 1830, Francis Hope bought the huge blue diamond in an auction for 90.000 pounds and gave the stone his name. Francis Hope, who was a member of the parliament, soon died a sudden, unexplained death. Soon after his demise, his widow was burned to death in their mansion. After receiving the stone, Francis Hope’s heir and nephew, Thomas, went bankrupted and was abandoned by his wife.
Thomas got rid of the diamond, which was purchased by the Russian prince Iva Kitanovski who gave it to a ballerina. The night she wore it for the first time she was shot and killed.
After a series of tragedies the stone found itself in the hands of Sultan Abdul Mamid II, who was forced to resign in favor of his brother and took the Hope along with other personal things to exile.
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Tags: Diamond Jewelry, famous diamonds, Hope Diamond, The Killing Stone