Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Marie Antoinette At The Guillotine. |
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| Source: See Smithsoniam Mag link below. |
The queen paid for the bracelets with gemstones from her collection and funds supplied by her husband, Louis XVI. In 1791, as the French Revolution threatened to upend the monarchy, Marie Antoinette sent the jewelry—enclosed in a wooden chest—to the former Austrian ambassador to France, Count Mercy Argenteau, for safekeeping.
Following the queen’s execution in October 1793, Austria’s emperor, Francis II, ordered his servants to create an inventory of the chest’s contents. Item number six, according to Christie's was a “pair of bracelets where three diamonds, with the biggest set in the middle, form two barrettes; the two barrettes serve as clasps, each comprising four diamonds and 96 collet-set diamonds.”...
Marie Antoinette's Diamond Bracelets Are Going Up for Auction | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine
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... Although this anecdote is not supported by any formal documentation, much historical evidence having been destroyed during the Revolution, the family tradition of the house tells that Jean-Baptiste’s nephew, François Mellerio, probably attended the execution of Marie Antoinette, guillotined on October 16, 1793. Drafted by the National Guard during the Terror, he was summoned to the Conciergerie that day. This bracelet is said to be a token of this connection, even if no order book of the jeweler can confirm it.
However, according to the experts, this is not a legend. Marie Antoinette loved rubies, and it was she who started the fashion of jewelry bearing cameos. The bracelet disappeared in the late 1970s during an estate sale at the Hotel Drouot, but was found and bought back by the jeweler in 2014. It’s unquestionably from the 18th century and its simplicity corresponds to what the Mellerios were selling at that time. Cameos would remain one of their specialties throughout the 19th century.
And here is that link.
The moving story of Marie Antoinette’s bracelet (aleteia.org)
I've written before of Marie Antoinette's jewels.
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Coincidentally, after a recent trip to the Sebastian Mel Fisher museum by some of the members of the Oak Island cast and crew, it seems they found a Spanish gold coin on Oak Island. Now they are claiming to have found the first gold on the island, but I remember when they claimed to have found gold before, not counting the many misidentifications and finds by others.
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Last Thursday when I was metal detecting, one of the first items I dug was the bottom of an aluminum can, which was over a foot under the sand. You usually don't like to see those kinds of deep targets, and it doesn't happen all the time, but if the physics are right, it does.
I intended to explain how that happens and the consequences, but I didn't get it done yet. Soon, I hope.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |
We are having some three to five foot surf, but the tides have been flat and the wind yesterday was from the west. Not all that encouraging.
Wear your Halloween masks.
TreasureGuide@comcast.net