A Diamond and an Emperor
- Bobby Jakucs, Psy.D.
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
"Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction." -G.K. Chesterton
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Often, the best true stories become embellished with a bit of legend. While it makes them less accurate, it somehow also makes them more true.
This one’s no different. In fact, we’re not even certain how it begins. But we are certain of where it ends. Well, that’s not entirely true - but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
For now, legend says that this story starts with a slave in a faraway country.
Long ago, a slave was working in a diamond mine under dreadful conditions. One day, he came across a remarkable diamond of untold value. Seeing his chance he fled, taking the diamond with him.
In a nearby port town, a ship was docked. Its captain and crew awaited their next voyage. While waiting, the captain and the slave crossed paths in the local tavern. The captain, an astute man, discovered what the slave was hiding and - as a greedy man – murdered the slave and took the diamond for his own.
The captain fell on hard times and was forced to sell the diamond for next to nothing to a merchant. Shortly thereafter the provincial governor arrived and came into the merchant’s shop. He saw the diamond among the other jewels.
Now, the governor was a nobleman but he was not a wealthy man. He knew that if he could acquire the diamond and sell it in his homeland, he would secure his family’s financial future. He scraped together enough funds to purchase it and sailed home.
Despite his best efforts, he was unable to find a buyer there. Undeterred, he used his connections to secure its sale to a neighboring kingdom. In fact, the diamond’s beauty caught the eye of the king of that land and he paid an immense sum. In an instant, the governor became a wealthy man. He purchased land and sent his son to the finest schools.
In time, the governor’s son became a powerful political leader. Like his father who wanted to secure the family’s material fortune, he wanted to secure his family’s political fortunes. He too sent his own son to the finest schools with the hope the young man would one day become prime minister of their nation.
Meanwhile, in the nearby kingdom, a revolution long simmering erupted with great violence. The king and queen were executed and after a period of anarchy a young, ambitious general came to power. In his pride he declared himself emperor. He needed a symbol to match his aspiration and so affixed the king’s diamond to his ceremonial sword.
His ambition grew and he sought to dominate all the nearby peoples. One by one, the neighboring nations fell to his armies.
Hope seemed lost.
Meanwhile, the grandson of the provincial governor was in fact elected prime minister. His nation was one of the last to resist. Like his grandfather and father before him, he worked tirelessly. He united the last free people across the continent into an unlikely coalition. Nations that had previously been bitter enemies set aside their decades of disagreement and rallied to the cause of liberty.
The struggle against the emperor was long. Several times the coalition teetered on the brink of dissolution and defeat. And yet, the prime minister’s determination kept his nation and the allies in the fight.
Ultimately, they prevailed.
The emperor was deposed and sent into exile. The diamond, the symbol of his pride and hubris, was returned to the people. It came to rest in a museum and has sat there in peace ever since.
The Regent Diamond: the Facts Behind the Legend
While we are uncertain of where this story truly started, we are absolutely certain of the plot points. They are:
That diamond was found in India, at the time a colony of Great Britain.
It was bought from a local merchant by the Provincial Governor, a man named Thomas Pitt.
He could not find a buyer in England and sold it to the Royal Family of France.
The newly acquired wealth enabled his family to become a political dynasty.
The King and Queen of France were overthrown in the French Revolution.
The tyrant who seized power - and the diamond - was Napoleon Bonaparte.
The grandson of Thomas Pitt, the man who led the resistance that defeated Napoleon was none other than William Pitt, one of Britain’s greatest Prime Ministers.
The diamond was called the Pitt Diamond, and later renamed the Regent Diamond.
Today it is a cornerstone of the French Crown Jewels Collection at the Louvre Museum.
A Loose Thread in the Tapestry
No interaction happens in a vacuum. We never know the hidden significance behind the seemingly mundane moments of our lives. Whoever found what became the Regent Diamond had no idea it would lead to the downfall of one of Europe’s most powerful emperors. Nor did anyone who played a role in the story, great or small.
The Russian tradition calls this concept Sobornost. I’ve written about the concept here. It is the recognition that our lives are bound together, and that we often play a part in stories much larger than our own.
In the West, and the Catholic tradition in particular, we might call this Solidarity, which Pope Leo XIV recently and beautifully described as, “the concrete recognition that the future of each individual is connected to the future of all.” Each of us both shapes and is shaped by others. For better and for worse.
Because, as the Holy Father goes on to say, “indeed, no one is saved alone.” (from Magnifica Humanitas).
Writers, philosophers and sages through the ages have used the image of a tapestry to describe the human experience. We don’t see the consequences of every action because we live fixed in time.
We can’t realize the beauty of the masterpiece, because we are living in it.
Peter Kreeft explores this veiled beauty we so often miss in Doors in the Walls of the World. He writes, “If God is God, He must be the greatest storyteller, and the story of human life on earth must be the most perfect of all stories; but we do not see the frontside of that tapestry, for we are on the backside. We can, however, expect to see some loose threads...that are clues rather than visions or proofs, of the perfection of the picture as God sees it.”
Perhaps, the Regent Diamond is one of those loose threads. There may be another thread here too. Because the story of the Regent Diamond does not really end with a museum display.
In fact, the ripples that began in India 300 years ago are still moving across the water. After all, every thread in a tapestry is woven to another.
The Ripples Continue
You might be asking, “where would a psychologist have heard about the Regent Diamond?”
The truth is I read a lot of heavy books. Every once in a while, I like to give my mind a break. One day, a book on my “lighter” reading list caught my eye. Like the slave at the beginning of the story, who suggested it to me remains a mystery.
Also, like every character in our tale, whoever that was will never know their full part in the story. And yet, their suggestion led me to pick up a book written by a Sicilian-American mafioso who had served hard time in Federal Prison.
For many years Louis Ferrante “lived the life” and rubbed elbows with – and followed the orders of - some of the biggest crime bosses in North America. He ultimately was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to years behind bars. Once there, and with not much else to do, he turned to reading. Especially history. He really enjoyed it.
He enjoyed it so much he started writing. And like most writers, he wrote about what he knew. He combined his knack for historical research with interviews and first-hand experience to write a comprehensive trilogy on the origins and history of the Sicilian mafia. He included the story of the Regent Diamond in the first book of his series, Borgata: Rise of Empire.
And so, dear reader, you are reading this story because one day I needed a break, picked up a book by a reformed mobster-turned historian, and found it stirred something in my soul.
Why a reformed mobster in New York chose to include that particular story I will likely never know. He will likely never know it caught the imagination of a psychologist in Los Angeles that writes about meaning in the mundane.
(Unless, Mr. Ferrante you happen to be reading this in which case - great book and thank you for this idea.)
The point is, the story of the Regent Diamond still does not stop with a historian in New York and a psychologist in Los Angeles. It continues to echo across time and space. It is just one more loose thread in a tapestry to beautiful for us to see.
The ripples of our choices wash up on the most unlikely of shores. Without end.
Because the next chapter of the Regent Diamond saga is waiting to be written. And the question is now being asked of you:
What will your part in the story be?
