“The jewelled hilt,
  Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,”

was valued at one hundred thousand dollars!  But one of the pleasantest of our personal remembrances, connected with diamonds, is the picking up of a fine, lustrous gem which fell from O.B.’s violin-bow, (the gift of the Duke of Devonshire,) one night, after he had been playing his magic instrument for the special delight of a few friends.  The tall Norwegian wrapped it in a bit of newspaper, when it was restored to him, and thrust it into his cigar-box! [O.B. sometimes carried his treasures in strange places.  One day he was lamenting the loss of a large sum of money which he had received as the proceeds of a concert in New York.  A week afterwards he found his missing nine hundred dollars stuffed away in a dark corner of one of his violin-cases.]

There is a very pretty diamond-story current in connection with the good Empress Eugenie.  Madame de Barrera relates it in this wise.

“When the sovereign of France marries, by virtue of an ancient custom kept up to the present day, the bride is presented by the city of Paris with a valuable gift.  Another is also offered at the birth of the first-born.

“In 1853, when the choice of His Majesty Napoleon III. raised the Empress Eugenie to the throne, the city of Paris, represented by the Municipal Commission, voted the sum of six hundred thousand francs for the purchase of a diamond necklace to be presented to Her Majesty.

“The news caused quite a sensation among the jewellers.  Each was eager to contribute his finest gems to form the Empress’s necklace,—­a necklace which was to make its appearance under auspices as favorable as those of the famous Queen’s Necklace had been unpropitious.  But on the 28th of January, two days after the vote of the Municipal Commission, all this zeal was disappointed; the young Empress having expressed a wish that the six hundred thousand francs should be used for the foundation of an educational institution for poor young girls of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

“The wish has been realized, and, thanks to the beneficent fairy in whose compassionate heart it had its origin, the diamond necklace has been metamorphosed into an elegant edifice, with charming gardens.  Here a hundred and fifty young girls, at first, but now as many as four hundred, have been placed, and receive, under the management of those angels of charity called the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, an excellent education proportioned to their station, and fitting them to be useful members of society.

“The solemn opening of the Maison-Eugenie-Napoleon took place on the 1st of January, 1857.

“M.  Veron, the journaliste, now deputy of the Seine, has given, in the ‘Moniteur,’ a very circumstantial account of this establishment.  From it we borrow the following:—­