FAMOUS JEWEL LOST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19337, 29 May 1937, Page 13

FAMOUS JEWEL LOST

I SENSATION IN VIENNA SOLDIER SENTENCED LONDON. April 28. A former captain of tho Austrian Imperial Army, J. von Korwin, has been sentenced to a year's imprisonment in connection with tiie mysterious disappearance of a famous jewel, the so-called Hortense diadem. The trial was a sensation in Vienna, not only because the jewel itself was of great historical interest, and of great value, but because the people involved were famous. The owner of the jewel was the lato Archduke Leopold Salvator, who left Austria after the 1918 collapse and settled in Spain. One of the people who tried to buy if was the once famous banker, Sigismiind Hose), while the. chief witness was the Archduchess Ulanca, widow of the Archduke Leopold Salvator, whose diary, written in French, was produced in court. From the evidence of the Archduchess lilanca, it appeared that her family never intended to sell the jewel. The diadem was a present from Napolion 1 to his stepdaughter, Hortense. Bcauharnais (the daughter oli Josephino lieauharnais Napoleon's first wife), who later married Louis Bonaparte, King of the Netherlands. Her third son was Napoleon 111, Emperor of France. From Queen ITortense's possession, the jewel passed into tho hands of the Tuscany branch of the Hapsburgs. The evidence of witnesses showed that,

when the Austrian revolution broke out, the Archduchess Blan'ca became • frightened, because she had read a book about the French Revolution, and had come to | the conclusion that "if there is a revolution, wo must fly the country." The family, therefore, tried to send the jewel out of the country, if possible, to Spain. In 1920, Captain Korwin volunteered to take it, ami the Archduke gave him a letter, on tho basis of which his trusted man in Vienna, who kept the diadem in hiding, handed over tho jewel. In his diary, tho Archduke said that lie merely asked Korwin to smuggle the jewel into Spain, while Korwin said be was told to dispose of it. He, therefore, pawned it in a shop at Dorotheum, It then disappeared.