JEWELS IN PAWN,

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12066, 23 July 1917, Page 8

JEWELS IN PAWN,

SEEKING AID OF "MA ML" HOW ROYALTY SECURES FUNDS NOT SUPPLIED BY THE STATE.

(By CLNLIFFE EX, in the Xcx York ''Herald.")

That the French Government should have been required to give collateral comprising large blocks of shares of the .Suez Canal Company for the loan of £110,000,000 which it obtained from New York bankers excited considerable unfavourable comment on the part of the French people.

to do through the death of her mother, the Duchess Maximilian of Bavaria, who bequeathed to her the bulk of her fortune; through a large legacy from the Empress of Austria, and through the payment by the Italian Government, of the arrears of her annuity wluoh iiad been settled upon her by the Neapolitan Government tinder the terms of a treaty with her native land of Bavaria- at the time of her marriage to King Francis. Inasmuch as the Government, of United Italy had taken over the treaty obligations of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after its incorporation in the Union, the treasury at Borne was liable to Queen Marie of Naples for the allowance due. to her under her marriage contract, but neglected to recognise this obligation until after her husband's death. MOST VALUABLE CROWN I.N THE WORLD. Just what has become of the crown of Portugal I am unable to say. It is the most valuable in the world, its intrinsic worth being estimated at £l,6oo.ooo—that is to say, four times the cost of the crowns of Russia and ot Great Britain. But some sixteen or seventeen years ago King Carlos, with the consent of bis Ministers, negotiated a loan in London on the security of the crown jewels. Nor could anyone blame him, nor yet his Cabmer, for having recourse to such netaods, At the time the Government officials and troops were rnpaid. the people were overtaxed, and the State was unable, to nv-et her 'financial obligations, either at borne or abroad, while nearly £-2,000.000 lay idle and unproductive in tho vaults of" the. Reval Xecessidades Palace at. Lisbon, in 'the shape of Crown jewels. When the republic was, proclaimed at, Lisbon in 1000, and King Manuel was deprived of his throne, and driven into exile, an attempt was made by the Re- . volutionary Junta to hold and contisleate his private, belongings and those 1 of his widowed mother, on the ground that the Crown jewels had been pawned 'abroad by the murdered King Carlos. But the republican authorities were subsequently obliged to withdraw this | contention on it- being shown that the pledging had been done by Don Carlos i with "the full consent of his Governj merit, and that the, greater part, of ' tho monev thus raised had gone into 'the coffers of the. State. 7 understand that- if the gems have never been redeemed it, is partly because the. republican regime at Lisbon has no available funds for the purpose, ami also because -the holders of the. gems in London are unable to determine which of the jewels belong to the Portuguese nation and which'to the one-time King and to his moth or as the private property of the former reigning house of Portugal. KING MILAN'S SCIMITAR. The late King Milan of Serbia had no crown voluabb enough to pawn, since it 's made, of bronze, taken from captured Turkish cannon. Indeed, the chief regalia of the rulers of Serbia, until Milan proclaimed himself King, consisted of a magnificent, jewelled scimitar. This he did not. scruple t-o repeatedly pawn at Vienna, previous to his abdication, in order to pay card debts which he had incurred in the, Ausirian capital, for he was au inveterate and unlucky gambler, who squandered mauy thousands of pounds in this fash-

"When the Government of a great nation such as Franco, possessed of colossal arid well-nigh inexhaustible resources and of iin unblemished fiscal record, is thus required to furnish collateral for ready money in the form of a temporary loan we can no longer be. surprised that monarchs whose thrones are as a rule less stable than the treasury of the nation over which they rule should also find themselves unable to borrow without giving some, form of security.

It, is not, so long ago that,. Queen Elizabeth of Belgium was obliged to pledge most of Iter jewels in London for a personal loan of 1'50,000. Queen Elizabeth, however, was nor, compelled to submit to the indignity of having recourse to the pawnshop, as has been the case with a number of other of the anointrvl of the Lord, the loan being made on her jewels by a, well known London linn of bankers. Nearly everywhere the credit of the State is superior to that, of the monarch. For, whereas rulers coma and go and one dynasty may be compelled to give wav to another, the_ State alwavs remain?, and each administration is a matter o[ economic policy lorc.ed to recognise, to accept and to fultil the financial obligations of those that ha\e gone betoro. The only exception that 1 can recall in this connection was tlint, of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who because of the early years of his stoiniN reign was obliged to mortgage his Lugo private fortune in order to obtain a loan in Paris for the Bulgarian Government, , . . . Queen Elizabeth of Belgium is by no means the first crowned head to he obliged to raise money by the pawning of her jewels. Indeed, it has beep o! frequent- occurrence in modern and m ancient times. SPANISH QUEEN'S EXTRAVAGANCE. Tho late Queen Isabella of Spain was wont, indeed, to openly joke about her frequent recourse to the. '"'Mont de Piete," as the Government pa.wnbroking institution is styled in I'ranee. After the restoration of the monarchy nt Madrid in ihe person of her <ui]v son. King Alfonso XII., she settled down for Ihe remainder of her days in. Paris. Although she recover! a large allowance from the Spanish Ireasury. supplemented by generous gifts from the. privy purse of King Alfonso, and after his death from that of his widow, Queen Christina, yet she was always in financial difficulties. It was not so much that- she was travagant as that- she had no conception of the value, of money, and was always ready to give away far more than she could afford in cases of distress that excited her sympathy or that, moved her to grief. The result was that the magnificent Velasquez; portraits of her ancestors ihat- in time of plent-y adorned the walls of the great-dining-room of the Palais do <"'ast.ile were constantly en route, between tho palace and the .Mont, de Piete, -where she could always raise a few hundred thousand francs on them.

1011 ■ It. is asserted that in return for the largo, sums of money which had been advanced by G-ernisny to the Sublime Porte since "th" beginning of the present war, Sultan Mehmed Jias been obliged to turn over his wonderful jewelled throne to his allies at Berlin by way of collateral. The throne was that of Shah Ismail, which formed part of the. plunder of Sultan Selim I. when he overran Persia in 1011. Ever since. his reign this throne. of tho Pers'an Shahs was preserved at. Constantinople., in the. treasury-of tho old Sera alio, to which few- foreigners have, ever been accorded access. It. is in Hie form of a divan, covered with a. haldeqnin or canopy, the posts of wlii' li, as well as the throne itself, being of pure gold, are literally studded with mn.gniticent but badly cut jewels. BEHIXD THE GOLDEX SOEEEN. The. intrinsic value of the entire a-ffair is estimated at some, £3.000,000, and it. has been used during tho last, cpnt.ury only on '-cry great ceremonial occasions Tt does not strictly form parr, or pared of the Ottoman imperial regalia, which consist of the scimitar, tho bowl, the ftaff, tho standard and, ahovo all, the mantle, of the Prophet- Mohammed. The. lour comers of the. canopy over the throne are adorned with huge, •solid gold balls, from which aro suspended golden crescents, and, fastened thereto, horsetails. Formerly the Turkish Sultans were wont to receive foreign envoys sealed on this throne. But. tho diplomatists were not. permitted to approach it beyond a certain distance. In fact-, there was a sort of golden grillwork between them and tho monarch, something like the wire caging which separates prisoners from their visitors in penitentiaries. THE CBOAYX OF HUNG ART.

During the lifetime of flip late Kins Francis of Xaplos, both lie and bis consort, the heroine of the siege of Gaotn, and the only -woman Knight, of thA Russian Order of St Ceorgp. were in vory st rait oner] circumstances. This- 1 royal couple lived in Pari?; for many years in the firm belief ibat they would sooner oi- later bo recalled by tli'n'r loving subjects: to resume their place on the throne of tho Two Sicilir.-. For ibis reason tlipy declined to take a, hoii--.p, but. made their headquarter; in a hotel jus;- off the Champs Elysoes. and kept their trunks always half packed there co as to bp in readiness to start at a. moment's notipp when thryearned for summons came. They bad a large number of retainers who had remainpd loyal to their cause, and, recruited from every class of iSouth Italian and Sicilian society, their maintenance constituted A HEAVY DRAIX OX THE MEVORE PURSE

of the King and Queen. Tt was to enable them to preserve these faithful adherents from want, and not as th,. result of any extravagance, that King Francis on several occasions bad to pledge, in London all his fine collection of silver plate and Queen Marie the exquisitely cbisellid silver fittings and equipment of her dressing-room, including a marvellous <'\vvr and immensesilver basin.

__ ft was only after the death of King Francis that Queen .Marie, a sister of the murdered Empress of Austria and of that Duchess of Alencon who sacrificed her life for others in the Charity Bazaar fire in Paris, abandoned the hope of ever returning to XapU's and established herself in ;i house of her own in Paris. This she was enabled

Xo crown has .suffered stranger vicissitudes (ban t.hat of Hungary,, which, made- "nearly uine hundred years ago for Si- Stephen, King of has been repeatedly pawned in the past,

on one occasion for the trifling: sum of .'WOO ducats. Yet it. is of pure gold, with fifty-three sapphires, sixty rubies, one. largo emerald, .310 pearls and certiiin oblong green stones the character of which remains a puzzle to even the greatest experts in gems. The whole thins weighs some fifteen pounds, and the "discomfort enrhired by Fra.ncjs Joseph when lie wa.s obliged to wear it for several hours, on tie occasion of Ills solemn coronation as King of Hungary, close upon fifty rears ago, must, have reminded him of the line, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a. crown."

The crown of Eng.la.nd was often pawned in tho days prior to tho accession of tho present dynasty, at the commencement of the eighteenth century ; and that of Sweden mot with a similar fa to during the reign of the adventurous King Charles XII., who spent several years as a. prisoner of war in Turkey.