Created for an empress, this necklace enthralled archduchesses, the Romanovs, an American collector, and – today – millions of viewers every year.

File Under: Other Royal Jewels

Want me to read this post to you?

Rather watch the video? I’ve got you covered:

This famous diamond necklace was a gift from Emperor Napoleon to his second wife, Marie Louise, to celebrate the birth of their son in March of 1811.

Nineteen-year-old Marie Louise had done what his first wife, Josephine, had been unable to do: give him the son and heir who would inherit his crown and his empire. The delivery had not been an easy one. Marie Louise was heard to scream, “Must I die for the sake of the child?”¹ When the doctors hinted that only the mother or the child would survive, Napoleon told them to save Marie Louise. They delivered the baby with forceps, and little Napoleon François Joseph Charles emerged with a few scratches on his head. Napoleon later wrote, “I’m not naturally soft-hearted, yet I was much moved when I saw how she suffered.”²

The proud father gave his son the title King of Rome. And to reward Marie Louise for her efforts, he commissioned a spectacular diamond necklace from the court jeweler, François Nitôt. Later that year, the jeweler presented them with an elegant design of 234 diamonds weighing an estimated 263 carats.³ A Viennese jeweler appraised it at 376,275 gold francs, an enormous amount that was equal to about half of Marie Louise’s household budget for a whole year.⁴ That was the measure of Napoleon’s relief and gratitude, now that his dynasty was secure.

And so began this necklace’s journey through the centuries, across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, into the hands of an ambitious archduchess, a con man, a collector, and finally – just as Indiana Jones would have wanted – a museum. Join me as we spend a few minutes with  every owner of the necklace to trace its journey through time.

Empress Marie Louise

Born in 1791, Marie Louise grew up in a world dominated by the specter of the French Revolution. As a child, she played with an effigy of Napoleon in her nursery. As a teenager, she and her family fled Vienna not once but twice to avoid capture by his invading army. When Napoleon divorced Josephine, the whole world wondered who he might marry next. Marie Louise wrote, “I pity the poor princess he chooses.”⁵ But then, at age 18, she found out that poor princess was her. She then wrote, “Pray that it may never happen.”⁶ But it did happen.

And although her father sacrificed her for the sake of an alliance, Marie Louise was as surprised as anyone when she fell in love with her 40-year-old husband. She wrote, “I find that he improves a lot on closer acquaintance. There is something attractive and polite about him which is impossible to resist.”⁷

After she gave birth to their son and took on a bigger role at court, her confidence increased. She knew it was her Habsburg blood that had brought a sense of legitimacy to the new imperial court. She told her father’s chancellor, “I have no fear of Napoleon, but I begin to think that he is afraid of me.”⁸

But her happiness was not to last.

First came Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, then his loss at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. As his enemies continued to fight their way toward Paris, Napoleon said goodbye to Marie Louise and their son and headed out to face them.

That spring of 1814, Marie Louise and her advisors waited anxiously for news – and then had to decide what to do when they learned Napoleon’s enemies had made it to outskirts of Paris.

The Regency Council voted twice for her to stay, to help organize resistance and inspire the people to defend their city.⁹ But a letter from Napoleon ordered his brother to “Never leave the Empress or the King of Rome in the hands of the enemy.”¹⁰ The very next morning, at the urging of Napoleon’s brothers, she left Paris against her will, followed by wagons full of her possessions.¹¹ She dashed off a quick letter to Napoleon to tell him, “They’ve all lost their heads except me.”¹²

The empire collapsed around her as she fled, with courtiers begging for help and foreign soldiers roaming the road and looting wagon trains. Communication was difficult, as messengers were often delayed or captured. Unsure where to go or what to do, she wrote to Napoleon, “I’m waiting for your orders, and I beg you to let me come.”¹³

But those orders never came.

Slowly, Marie Louise realized that no one was left to help her.

When she heard that Napoleon had abdicated, she decided to join him in exile on the island of Elba. But when he sent orders to have her and their son brought to him, an Austrian delegation snatched her first.¹⁴ She and her son were valuable political pawns, and the Austrians wanted to keep them out of Napoleon’s hands. When she finally saw her father, Emperor Franz I, a few days later, the meeting did not go as she’d hoped.

She wrote in despair to Napoleon, “He forbids me to come to you, to see you; he does not want to allow me to join you on your voyage…he wants me to spend two months in Austria…”¹⁵ Her father and his allies planned to give her several small duchies in Italy that she would rule in her own right as compensation for having lost the throne of France. But until that plan was finalized, they wanted her under their control.

Marie Louise had no choice but to obey her father and return to Vienna. There, the stress of the past few months caught up with her. She lost weight and began coughing up blood. Her father, aware that she still wanted to join Napoleon, appointed a dashing officer to escort her to the French spa town of Aix for a cure.

Albert Adam, Count von Neipperg  was a stark contrast to Napoleon. A one-eyed general in the Austrian army, he was energetic, cultured, shared Marie Louise’s love of music…and was known to be a playboy. It’s been said that her father chose Neipperg on purpose, perhaps hoping he could make Marie Louise forget about Napoleon. But if she didn’t, and tried to sneak away to join him, her father ordered Neipperg to stop her “by any means whatsoever.”¹⁶

During their spa trip, Neipperg took Marie Louise for carriage rides, accompanied her on walks, and played the piano while she sang. Under his care, she relaxed and her health improved. Life was easy with Neipperg at her side…and Marie Louise decided that she liked easy. One of her attendants in Aix, whose room was next to hers, later wrote that based on what he heard inside, she and Neipperg became lovers. Whether that’s true or not, Marie Louise wrote to thank her father for sending him. Her father wrote back, “I thought he would please you.”¹⁷

Then, one day, a messenger from Napoleon suddenly appeared. He ordered her to sneak away with him and board a ship that would take them to Napoleon. Marie Louise refused. She didn’t want to go back to a life of stress, fear, and uncertainty. She chose to stay with her father and Neipperg instead.

When Napoleon escaped Elba and returned to France in March of 1815, he expected Marie Louise to join him and ordered her rooms in the Tuileries palace be redecorated.¹⁸ But she refused to write to him or open his letters.

After he lost the battle of Waterloo and was sent to a second exile in faraway St. Helena, she wrote to her father, “I hope he will be treated with kindness and clemency and I beg you, dearest Papa, to make certain that it is so…It is the last time I shall busy myself with his fate.”¹⁹

Although she refused to consider a divorce, she continued her secret affair with Neipperg. When the Congress of Vienna awarded her the Italian duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, Neipperg went with her to Parma in 1816 to help her rule the duchy. She wrote to a friend, “He is now staying for ever beside me.”²⁰

But there was a downside to her new role as Duchess of Parma. Her father wouldn’t allow her son to leave Austria. He feared Napoleon’s son could become the center of a revolutionary or pro-Bonaparte restoration movement and make Habsburg rule in Italy more difficult than it already was.²¹ Every few years, Marie Louise returned to Vienna to visit her son, who had been given the title Duke of Reichstadt to keep him from dreaming of a better one as Emperor Napoleon II.

Later in life, thinking back on the fate of princesses and perhaps responding to criticism about how easily she left France and the father of her child, Marie Louise said, “…princesses are not brought up like other women, we are not taught to have the same emotional ties, the same family sentiment. We are always prepared for events which break the link, which take us far from our relations and give us new and often conflicting interests.”²²

In Parma, Marie Louise tried to keep her life as conflict-free as possible. She and Neipperg had two children together…while she was still married to Napoleon. It was all kept very quiet, with the first baby listed as being of “unknown parentage” in the baptismal register.²³ Four months after Napoleon’s death, she married Neipperg in secret. They continued to live quietly in Parma, in leisure and seclusion, and had one more child. During these calm years, she had several portraits painted wearing the diamond necklace Napoleon had given her.

Marie Louise was devastated when Neipperg died of heart disease in 1829. Unfortunately, his will revealed that two of their three children had been born before they got married.²⁴ Up to that point, her son with Napoleon had believed all three kids were born after Napoleon had died. When he learned the truth, he said, “My mother is kind but weak, she was not the wife my father deserved.”²⁵

Several years later, when a rebellion in Parma threatened to topple her from her throne, her father sent her troops and then a new chief administrator to manage her affairs. Comte Charles René de Bombelles was a French nobleman who had fought against Napoleon in the Austrian army. He was a widower, extremely good at his job, and at ease in every layer of society.²⁶

Much like Neipperg had, he became her devoted companion. He took her for a carriage ride every afternoon, and went with her to theater after dinner. The couple fell in love and, 180 days after he arrived, married secretly in February of 1834.²⁷ They kept their relationship a secret until Marie Louise’s father had died, one year after the wedding.²⁸

Throughout the 1840s, political turbulence in her duchies increased with the beginning of the movement for Italian unification. Marie Louise begun to spend more time traveling to spas in the hope of a cure for her many ailments, ranging from dropsy to difficulty breathing. It didn’t work. She died in Parma on December 17, 1847 at age 56.²⁹

Archduchess Sophie

Marie Louise left her diamond necklace to her sister-in-law, Archduchess Sophie. She chose Sophie because, at the time, it looked like she was destined to be the next Empress of Austria.

Born in 1805, Sophie was the fourth daughter of King Maximilian I of Bavaria and Queen Caroline – one of their second set of twin girls.³⁰ The family was very close-knit, and while her father was away at the Congress of Vienna, 9-year-old Sophie wrote a letter asking him to “Tell the emperors and kings that they must hurry up and do their business, so that the poor orphans may soon be restored to the parents so dear to their little hearts.”³¹

But, just as with Marie Louise, Sophie’s destiny was to leave her parents and make an advantageous marriage. In 1824, she married Marie Louise’s younger brother, Archduke Franz Karl of Austria. Franz Karl wasn’t the heir to the throne, but his oldest brother, Ferdinand, had epilepsy and was generally considered unfit to rule. Everyone assumed the crown would eventually pass to Franz Karl, which would make Sophie an empress.

It was small consolation for finding herself married to a man she had nothing in common with. He loved hunting and…that was about it. Sophie’s mother, Queen Caroline of Bavaria, said, “He would bore me to death. Sometimes I can’t take it anymore…sometimes I want to hit him.”³²

In her early years at court, Sophie’s best friend was Napoleon and Marie Louise’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt. Six years younger than Sophie, he had grown up to be tall and handsome, with distant memories of his father and the French court that he learned to keep to himself. He often accompanied Sophie to the theater or balls, since her husband wasn’t interested.³³ They read French novels and smuggled copies of liberal German newspapers to read together.³⁴ Both felt like outsiders, with interests the people around them didn’t share, and that understanding developed into a deep friendship.

Gossip linked them romantically, and although they may have been in love, it’s unlikely they ever had a physical affair. Sophie was all-too aware how important it was that she provide her husband – a likely future emperor – with a son and heir. But in the early years of her marriage, she had four miscarriages and felt an increasing amount of pressure from the emperor and the court.³⁵

In 1830, she found herself pregnant again and the doctors put her on bedrest. She wrote to her mother, “I’m taking such good care of myself that I haven’t left my room for eight weeks.”³⁶ When she went into labor, the whole court gathered in anticipation of an heir. But because the labor took almost 48 hours – and so many people were uncomfortable listening to Sophie’s screams – when her son, Franz Josef, was born, only six people were left in the room.³⁷ Like Marie Louise’s son, the doctors used forceps to pull him out. Sophie was overjoyed. She wrote, “As soon as I knew that my little one was alive, I thought almost no more of past sufferings. They are nothing compared to the bliss of having a child.”³⁸ Her best friend saw the beautiful blond pink-cheeked baby and said he looked like “strawberry ice cream topped with whipped cream.”³⁹

But her next pregnancy coincided with a sharp decline in her best friend’s health. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, the handsome young prince wasted away before her eyes. She saw him for the last time on July 4, 1832, when she went into confinement. Her second son, Maximilian, was born two days later. The last time anyone saw the Duke of Reichstadt smile was when someone told him of Max’s birth.⁴⁰ He died sixteen days later at age 21, while Sophie was still in confinement. When she emerged, the court noticed that she was different – older-looking, tired, without the same spark of joy about her. Court gossip would hint that Maximilian was the dead man’s son. It wasn’t true – that’s why Max himself could later joke about being Napoleon’s illegitimate grandson.⁴¹

For the rest of her life, Sophie poured all her energy into her four surviving children: Franz Josef, Maximilian, Karl Ludwig, and Ludwig Viktor. She had noticed the way Emperor Franz treated her son and not her husband as the heir to the throne and she did everything she could to make that happen.

When Emperor Franz died in 1835, Sophie’s brother-in-law, Ferdinand, ascended to the throne. Now married, but without any children, he was emperor in name only as a Council of State governed on his behalf. Sophie told her mother, “I often think I’m in a well-organized republic rather than a monarchy.”⁴² Ferdinand’s epileptic seizures were so frequent that they distorted his face, making his condition visible to all.⁴³ Without strong leadership, Austria was increasingly vulnerable. As Sophie watched and waited, it seemed that the ordered universe the Congress of Vienna had created was falling apart. From rising nationalism in Habsburg-ruled Italy to poor harvests and rising food prices, there was trouble ahead everywhere she looked.

The revolutionary year of 1848 changed everything. One by one, riots and revolts threatened thrones as the people demanded more rights and representational government. In France, King Louis-Philippe abdicated in a hurry. The kings of Prussia and the Netherlands hung onto their thrones by the skin of their teeth. When rioting broke out in Vienna, the imperial family fired their aging chancellor, Metternich, and fled to Innsbruck. After using force to put down revolts in Italy and Prague, the imperial family returned…and then fled again, this time to Olmutz.⁴⁴

Since no one else had stepped up to solve this crisis, Sophie and Ferdinand’s wife, Empress Maria Anna, decided to save the dynasty themselves. They worked together to persuade their husbands to renounce the throne, clearing the way for Franz Josef. He would turn 18 that summer – the perfect age, the perfect candidate, to give Austria a fresh start. On December 2, Ferdinand announced his abdication in favor of Franz Josef. At the ceremony, he said, “God bless you! Stay good, God will protect you. I acted with good heart.”⁴⁵ After the ceremony, Franz Josef threw himself into his mother’s arms. Sophie’s son was now an emperor – and would remain so until his death in 1916.

For the rest of her life, Sophie remained a close advisor to her son, much to the chagrin of her daughter-in-law, Elisabeth. There’s a lot more to say about Sophie, but this isn’t her story – it’s the story of her diamond necklace. At some point, she removed two stones to shorten the necklace and made earrings out of them, but they have since been lost to history.⁴⁶

Sophie lived another 25 years. One spring night in 1872, after attending the opera, she fell asleep on her balcony and woke up with a fever. She caught pneumonia, and after losing the ability to speak, she died on May 28, surrounded by her family.⁴⁷

She bequeathed the diamond necklace to all three of her surviving sons: Emperor Franz Josef, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and Archduke Ludwig Viktor. It was perfect timing for one of her sons, who was on the lookout for a beautiful bauble to give his soon-to-be third wife.

Archduke Karl Ludwig

If Franz Josef was Sophie’s dutiful and capable son, and Max was the sensitive and artistic son, Karl Ludwig was…not. As a child, at least, he was the boring son. He loved his family and looked up to his brother Max, but his tutor said bluntly, “He is limited in talent.” Sophie, his mother, added, “He will never become interesting.”⁴⁸ With no interests to drive him into a particular career, he was appointed governor of Tyrol and Vorarlberg and spent much of his time away from Vienna.⁴⁹

In 1856, at age 23, he married 16-year-old Princess Margarethe of Saxony. Sophie is said to have selected Margarethe, her sister’s daughter, as a bride. But arranged or not, it seems Karl Ludwig fell for Margarethe, and he happily brought her home to Innsbruck in the Tyrol, where she dedicated her time to charity work. But less than two years later, she died of typhoid on a trip to Italy. According to a correspondent of the London Times, her body had been poorly embalmed and, when it arrived in Vienna, the traditional open coffin at the funeral in the Palace Chapel had to be skipped.⁵⁰ Innsbruck petitioned to have some part of her interned in their court chapel, and Karl Ludwig sent them her heart.⁵¹

Margarethe’s death changed Karl Ludwig. He considered entering the clergy to escape from the world. He couldn’t bear to see all the places he’d seen with her, and he left for Rome where he spent a month grieving.⁵² To make matters worse, a government restructuring made governors of crown lands subject to the ministry and the Imperial Council. Since he didn’t think it was proper for an archduke to answer to a minister, he resigned.⁵³ Instead, he focused on becoming a patron of the arts and represented his brother the emperor at numerous artistic and scientific exhibitions.

In 1862, four years after Margarethe’s death, he married 19-year-old Princess Maria Annunziata, sister of the last king of Naples. They had four children in relatively rapid succession: Franz Ferdinand, Otto, Ferdinand Karl, and Margarete Sophie.

But like the Duke of Reichstadt before her, Maria Annunziata began to grow pale and thin, with constant and worsening coughing attacks. In 1871, she had become so ill that her mother-in-law Sophie described her as “a skeleton.”⁵⁴ Maria Annunziata knew how ill she was. She called Sophie and Franz Karl to her bedside and asked them to look after Karl Ludwig and the children. Two days later, she was dead at the age of 28.

Sophie honored her promise to Maria Annunziata. She comforted her son and paid special attention to her grandson Franz-Ferdinand, whom she described as having a “nervous and delicate nature.”⁵⁵ But now, the four children were still left without a mother – and when Sophie died the next year, they were left without any female role model.

The next year, in 1873, Karl Ludwig announced his engagement for a third time – to the Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal. He offered to buy his brothers’ shares of the famous diamond necklace in order to became the sole owner, and they agreed. He retained ownership of the necklace, but proudly offered it to his beautiful young bride. Although Maria Theresa didn’t own the necklace, it would remain in her possession for the next 71 years.

Archduchess Maria Theresa

If fairy tales have taught us anything, it’s to fear anyone who enters the story as a stepmother. But Maria Theresa single-handedly destroys every trope we know about the evil stepmother. Like Sophie, she deserves a video of her own, so this will just be an introduction rather than her full life story. She was an Infanta of Portugal, born in Bavaria in 1855 to a father in exile.⁵⁶ The former King Miguel I had taken the throne not once but twice from his niece, Queen Maria II, ending with a final abdication in 1834.

In July of 1873, just shy of her eighteenth birthday, Maria Theresa married 39-year-old Karl Ludwig and became the stepmother to his four children. She also added two more daughters to the family: Maria Annunziata, named after Karl Ludwig’s second wife, and Elisabeth Amalie. Loving and supportive, she became the emotional backbone of the family. Her stepchildren called her “Mama” because that’s exactly what she was.⁵⁷

In the early 1890s, Julia Grant – the granddaughter of President Ulysses S. Grant – met Maria Theresa at a court ball. She remembered Maria Theresa as being “very fragile and sad…”⁵⁸ But she may not have been very fragile at all. A woman we’ll meet in a few minutes once wrote that Karl Ludwig was an incredibly jealous husband and pretended Maria Theresa had delicate health to justify keeping a close watch over her and shooing off her many admirers.

That tallies with a report we have from Countess Nora Fugger, who made it clear that Maria Theresa wasn’t as fragile as she looked. Countess Fugger said Maria Theresa was an accomplished horseback rider who once participated in a long-distance ride of 160 miles without stopping.⁵⁹ When a man at court said he didn’t understand why Karl Ludwig would have given permission for his wife to do such a thing, Emperor Franz Josef told him, “You do not know women, if you think that they stop to ask permission.”⁶⁰

So we know Maria Theresa wasn’t as fragile as she looked. But what about sad? If she was truly melancholy, it may have been because of her husband. There are reports that he was domineering, controlling, and downright abusive; however, these reports usually come from gossipy sources like Catherine Radziwill and Marie Larisch. If their information is accurate, it’s all the more remarkable that she never let his bad behavior affect her love for the children.

In 1883, Maria Theresa wore this diamond necklace in Russia at the coronation of Tsar Alexander III. It wowed even the Romanovs and Maria Theresa later wrote, “The imperial family as well as the grand dames of Russia desired so much to see it closely that, in order to content them, it had to be exhibited at certain fixed hours under guard.”⁶¹

Six years later, when Franz Josef’s only son and heir died by suicide, Maria Theresa’s family was thrust into the spotlight. Karl Ludwig was now next in line for the throne, followed by his oldest son, Franz Ferdinand. As Empress Elisabeth withdrew further from court life, Maria Theresa frequently acted as the emperor’s hostess at official functions, often wearing the Napoleon diamond necklace. In 1891, one newspaper said her diamonds “outshine all others on occasions when the Empress is absent…”⁶²

Even with additional duties at court, family remained her top priority. In 1895, her stepson Franz Ferdinand was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis – the same disease that had killed his mother at age 28. Karl Ludwig wasn’t optimistic about his son’s chances, saying, “My son will not recover.”⁶³ Maria Theresa, on the other hand, chose to fight. She and Franz Ferdinand’s doctor, Victor Eisenmenger, worked together to protect Franz Ferdinand’s health. Maria Theresa constantly reminded him to bundle up, avoid cold weather, and stay out of overcrowded smoking rooms.⁶⁴

Luckily, she was one of the few people the stubborn archduke would actually listen to. Maria Theresa befriended Dr. Eisenmenger and his wife, Anna, who later became one of her most trusted emissaries. Put a pin in that name; Anna Eisenmenger will crop up again in just a few minutes.

In 1896, Maria Theresa’s husband contracted typhoid, just like his first wife Margarethe had. The whole family had recently traveled to Palestine, where he drank contaminated water from the River Jordan.⁶⁵ He died in Vienna on May 19, 1896 at age 62.

Now a widow, Maria Theresa could no longer act as court hostess for the emperor, but she continued to be the loving and supportive mother her children needed.⁶⁶ In fact, she was the driving force behind one of the most romantic and tragic love stories in all of history.

When Franz Ferdinand fell in love with an impoverished Bohemian aristocrat named Sophie Chotek, the emperor refused to allow their marriage. He believed marriage to a non-royal woman would harm the dynasty’s prestige at a time when they already had difficulty holding their multi-national and multi-lingual empire together. He shook his head and said, “Love makes people lose all sense of dignity.”⁶⁷

Ironically, there was one person even more opposed to the wedding than the emperor: his Lord High Chamberlain, Prince Alfred de Montenuovo. In an ironic twist, he himself was the product of a marriage deemed unworthy of a royal: he was the grandson of Empress Marie Louise and her chamberlain, Count von Neipperg.

Maria Theresa fought for Franz Ferdinand’s right to marry the woman he loved. She wore the emperor down by pleading their case multiple times. She even wrote to Pope Leo XIII to enlist him as an ally.⁶⁸ The Pope did eventually ask Franz Josef to allow the marriage, if only to put a stop to the gossip that was tarnishing the very image Franz Josef thought he was protecting.⁶⁹

The emperor begrudgingly  agreed to the wedding, but placed a number of obstacles in the couple’s way. Once a date had been set, he and Montenuovo declared the imperial court in mourning for an obscure relative, effectively banning all family members from attending any sort of celebration. Not to be deterred, Maria Theresa offered them the chapel at her summer palace in Bohemia as a wedding venue.⁷⁰ Then, when she heard that Montenuovo had forbidden any sort of celebration or welcome in the nearby town, she personally asked villagers to put up flags and bunting.⁷¹

The night before the wedding, she threw the happy couple a party and gave Sophie a jewelry box that had belonged to Franz Ferdinand’s mother.⁷² The next day, she and her two daughters were the only members of the imperial family who attended Franz Ferdinand’s wedding.⁷³ Even his own siblings stayed away. But he and Sophie were in a blissful world of their own, and they know exactly who they had to thank for their good fortune. Ferdinand wrote to Maria Theresa, “After God I have to thank you, Dearest Mama, because it was you who helped me in all respects gain such happiness.”⁷⁴

In 1914, when Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, Maria Theresa showed just as much love and compassion to the couple’s three children. She rushed from Vienna to Bohemia so she could be the one to gently break the news to them and escort them to Vienna for their parents’ funeral.⁷⁵ There, she tackled one problem after another on their behalf. When the Austrian government refused to pay for their parents’ autopsies or offer them any monetary support, Maria Theresa resorted to a little emotional blackmail. She told Franz Josef she was going to have the Habsburg equivalent of a yard sale, selling all her possessions to raise money for those kids.⁷⁶ If he didn’t want the public embarrassment, he’d better pay up. And he did.

But Alfred de Montenuovo wasn’t done inflicting humiliation on Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. When their bodies reached Vienna, he ordered Sophie’s coffin to be left at the station rather than brought to the palace. Once it had arrived, he refused to allow any royal insignia to rest on top of her coffin. He would only allow a fan and pair of gloves, the traditional symbols of a lady-in-waiting.⁷⁷

Once again, Maria Theresa stepped in. She and Franz Ferdinand’s nephew went to the emperor and persuaded him to allow Sophie to share Franz Ferdinand’s funeral ceremony.⁷⁸ Only Maria Theresa, with her reputation and clout, was able to wring these concessions from the emperor and his Lord High Chamberlain.

But even Maria Theresa couldn’t stop the war that the Sarajevo assassination unleashed. Initially, she firmly supported Austria’s war effort. She and two of her sisters hired a submarine to attack the Italian fleet, but accomplished nothing when the submarine sank with no injuries. For her interference, she was temporarily forbidden from appearing at court. Later in the war, after nursing men wounded by the bullets, bombs, and shrapnel, she changed her mind and became a staunch advocate for peace.⁷⁹

When the Habsburgs lost their throne in 1918, many family members fled or emigrated. One year later, in 1919, the National Council passed a law expelling all Habsburgs who refused to renounce their succession rights.⁸⁰ Maria Theresa was less concerned with her rights than with her step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She followed her step-grandson, Emperor Karl, into exile first in Switzerland and then on the island of Madeira. After Karl’s death, she eventually returned to Austria in the mid 1920s. But without her Habsburg pension, she lived on a greatly reduced income.⁸¹

These changed circumstances led to the most bizarre episode in the diamond necklace’s history.

For Sale by Owner

When Karl Ludwig died in 1896, he left the necklace to his three daughters, just as his mother Sophie had once left it to her three sons.⁸² His oldest daughter had died in 1902, which meant the two co-owners were Karl Ludwig’s daughters with Maria Theresa.

His will had allowed Maria Theresa to keep all the jewelry for the duration of her widowhood and until their daughters married.⁸³ By this point, even though one of those daughters was married, they seem to have been happy to leave the necklace in their mother’s possession. Then, in the late 1920s, she decided to sell.

She had the necklace appraised and was told it was worth $400,000 thanks to its rich history and connection to Napoleon. The value of the diamonds was closer to $220,000, but Maria Theresa believed its history mattered more and set her asking price at the full appraisal amount.⁸⁴

Nothing happened until 1929, when the sale exploded into front-page news. The details are murky, but we know that Maria Theresa agreed to let an agent sell the necklace. That agent was a writer named Gervée Baronte who had spent time in Vienna and met Archduchess Elisabeth, Franz Josef’s granddaughter.⁸⁵

Born in England, Gervée had spent time as a child in Italy, Canada, and Egypt. She had an on-and-off relationship with an Englishman named Charles Townsend. Both were separated from their spouses, but now pretended to be married to each other for the sake of propriety. The media referred to her as “Princess Baronti,” and to him as  “Colonel Townsend,” a former member of the British Secret Service. It’s unclear if or why they presented themselves as such, but in her autobiography, Gervée never claims to be a princess. As for Townsend, at least part of his story checks out. He claimed to be a “retired English government official formerly serving in Egypt” and census and immigration records in Ancestry.com prove that’s exactly what he was.⁸⁶

According to Gervée’s autobiography, an unnamed friend in Vienna asked her to help sell the diamond necklace.⁸⁷ She agreed. After trying and failing to sell it to the King of Egypt, she suggested taking the necklace to America. Townsend said he’d take charge of the sale in case they ran into trouble with “gangsters.”⁸⁸ It was, after all, the era of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Before handing over the necklace, Maria Theresa contacted the British Foreign Office to ask about Townsend. According to her friend, Baroness Anna Eisenmenger, the Foreign Office confirmed his status as a former Secret Service agent.⁸⁹ Maria Theresa then signed a contract, offering Townsend a commission if he made a sale.

In the fall of 1929, Baronte and Townsend arrived in America with Maria Theresa’s power of attorney. The necklace arrived separately, sent by registered mail in late September or early October. When it had cleared customs, Baronte put it in a safe deposit box in a bank on Fifth Avenue, along with the authentication documentation Maria Theresa had sent.⁹⁰

But the fall of 1929 was the wrong time to be trying to sell an incredibly expensive necklace. On October 29, the American stock market crashed, triggering what would become the Great Depression. Townsend told Maria Theresa it would now be hard to get even $100,000, a far cry from the $400,000 she’d anticipated.⁹¹ Gervée Baronte said she made contact with several potential buyers, including Marjorie Merriweather Post, a wealthy heiress and businesswoman. But every possible buyer turned her away, each time saying the necklace was just too expensive.⁹²

So Baronte and Townsend did their best to drum up a little extra publicity. On November 25, they held a showing of the necklace in the bank vault that was featured in several newspapers.  The extra publicity drew another Habsburg into the story. He agreed to help with the sale in return for a commission.

Archduke Leopold of Austria-Tuscany and Empress Marie Louise shared a common ancestor in her grandfather, Emperor Leopold II. He was one of ten children of Archduke Leopold Salvator and Infanta Blanca, daughter of the Carlist pretender to the throne of Spain.

He had served in the Austrian army during World War I and, after the revolution, married a Croatian baroness.⁹³ In 1927, estranged from his wife, Leopold had emigrated to America. He had landed a role in the 1928 film Four Sons, but a movie star’s level of fame and fortune never materialized.

Instead, scandal seemed to follow him wherever he went, including a fistfight with financier Julius Holmes at the Hotel Astor.⁹⁴ Now, he attempted to introduce Baronte and Townsend to socialites with enough money to buy the necklace.

In early January of 1930, Townsend got an offer of $175,000. Maria Theresa declined and asked him to stick to the price she’d already set.⁹⁵ By this point, however, she’d already begun to have second thoughts about Townsend. She revoked his authority to sell the necklace by both telegram and letter, and told him she’d sent a representative to collect the necklace, who would be arriving on February 10.⁹⁶ That representative was Baroness Anna Eisenmenger, whose husband had first diagnosed Franz Ferdinand with pulmonary tuberculosis.⁹⁷

At about the same time, Baronte and Townsend found another potential buyer: a New York jeweler named David Michel.⁹⁸ He believed the necklace was worth $60,000 and offered a cash payment. But Baronte and Townsend were dealing with a ticking clock because Anna Eisenmenger had arrived in New York on schedule on February 10. She tried to contact Townsend at the Hotel Montclair to retrieve the necklace, but couldn’t get a hold of him.

On the very next day, February 11, Townsend met with David Michel and finalized the sale for $60,000.⁹⁹ Michel was clear from the beginning that he didn’t care about the necklace’s historic value. He said, “I was interested only in the diamonds…They had been cut in the old-fashioned way, and this meant they would have to be cut over again. I agreed to give the setting back to Archduke Leopold…to me it was not worth $10.”¹⁰⁰ With the sale complete, Townsend paid Leopold $20,000 and he paid $2,500 to the artist who had introduced him to Mr. Michel.¹⁰¹

The instant the sale was complete, Townsend and Leopold urged Baronte to leave New York. Leopold said that once news of the sale hit the press, anyone Maria Theresa owned money to would come out of the woodwork, angling for some part of their commission. He said she owed a lot of money, including a hefty amount to her son-in-law, a prince of Liechtenstein.¹⁰² Why Leopold only shared this information now – and whether it’s actually true – is unclear.

After hours of arguing, Gervée Baronte gave up. She got into a taxi and headed for Chicago. Later, she would say of Townsend, “He would never have been such a fool if it hadn’t been for me.” And of Leopold, she said “…[he] was a devil.”¹⁰³

In her autobiography, she makes no mention of the share Townsend gave her, but it’s clear he sent her off with at least $7,250 – that’s the cut she mailed to Maria Theresa from Chicago, postmarked on February 13, two days after the sale. Of the $60,000 total, $20,000 went to Leopold and $2,500 to the buyer’s introducer. That left $37,500. If they sent Maria Theresa $7,250, that meant Townsend and Baronte kept $30,250.¹⁰⁴ In her autobiography, Baronte says she had to borrow $4,000 from her aunt just to get out of America. Did Townsend keep the whole $30,000? Or was Baronte lying about needing money to flee? We’ll probably never know.

In any case, with all the money theoretically dispensed, Townsend checked himself out of the Montclair Hotel and headed for Palm Beach, Florida on February 17.¹⁰⁵ And if that date surprises you a little bit, you’re not alone. After all, Anna Eisenmenger had arrived on the 10^th. How had Townsend managed to avoid her for a whole week? Maria Theresa had been able to reach him before, by letter and telegram. What went wrong that week? Was he hiding? Was Anna less than diligent in her attempts to find him?

This is another question we may never be able to answer.

In late February, when Maria Theresa received the paltry payment of $7,250, she went straight to the police. In America, Anna went to the Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, Harold Hastings. He issued a subpoena for Archduke Leopold, who said, “I was simply a witness to the sale and I also confirmed that the necklace was an historic heirloom.” As for his missing cohorts, he said, “I thought Mr. Townsend and his wife were charming people.”¹⁰⁶

The buyer, David Michel, confirmed Leopold’s story and returned the necklace to Anna Eisenmenger. Maria Theresa reimbursed him for $50,000 of the $60,000 purchase price, since she believed he had acted in good faith and had been taken in by the sellers.¹⁰⁷

As for Leopold, Maria Theresa’s lawyer in Vienna released a statement that said, “The young Archduke Leopold Salvator has not seen the owner of the necklace for many years; he has not corresponded with her and does not know anything about this piece of jewelry…”¹⁰⁸ But, unfortunately for Leopold, he was the only one the police could find – and the only one available to prosecute. Townsend and Baronte were apparently untraceable, except for their luggage, which investigators found abandoned in the Montclair Hotel.¹⁰⁹

On April 23, a grand jury handed in multiple indictments for grand larceny and conspiracy against Baronte, Townsend, and Leopold.¹¹⁰ The next day, Leopold surrendered and pled not guilty. He gave his age as 33 years old, his address as 151 East fifty-sixth Street, and said he had no occupation.¹¹¹ He was released on $7,500 bail, but soon changed his mind and asked a judge to put him in jail, thinking it would result in a speedier trial date.¹¹²

One day after he voluntarily went to jail, he learned that was impossible. There was no way to speed up the trial because Anna Eisenmenger had returned to Austria and wouldn’t be back until October. After 12 days in the New York jail known as the “Tombs,” he was released on bail a second time.¹¹³ Now, there was nothing he could do but wait for his trial.

At some point during Leopold’s legal problems, he met a wealthy Canadian widow named Alicia Gibson Coburn. She became a fixture by his side and had visited him in prison daily. She was in the courtroom as his trial began on November 19, 1930. There, Leopold’s lawyer argued, “It is necessary to prove that the defendant knew Townsend was going to commit a crime and that he actually aided and abetted him. The archduke is a foreigner and Townsend took advantage of his name and lack of business understanding.”¹¹⁴

The prosecution’s testimony lasted a total of three days. The jury went into deliberation at 1 pm on November 24. They were out five hours and fifteen minutes.¹¹⁵ The jury found Archduke Leopold not guilty of grand larceny. When the verdict was read, he smiled and kissed Alicia Gibson Coburn’s hand.¹¹⁶

A week later, a judge dismissed his second indictment for participating in the dispersal of the $60,000. Leopold returned to Austria, but was expelled in May of 1931 for failing to renounce his title.¹¹⁷ He returned to America, where he proposed to Alicia Gibson Coburn. He told a reporter, “I love American ladies and also love to live in America.”¹¹⁸ 

Most sources will tell you that Baronte and Townsend were never heard from again – but that’s not strictly true. I found both of them, and apparently, almost anyone in the English-speaking world could have found Gervée Baronte, who went on to publish several books available in America, Britain, and India.

In the end, the necklace sale was a fiasco that cost Maria Theresa $50,000. That was money she could have used during the turbulent inter-war years. Despite her age, she was still watching over her family. In 1938, after Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Hitler ordered Franz Ferdinand’s two sons be arrested and interned in Dachau. Himmler said both men had shown “terrible behavior” in their protests against the Nazi party and the annexation of Austria.¹¹⁹ Within hours of the arrest, both men’s wives turned to Maria Theresa for help and advice. She told them, “Never give up. Never show fear. Use personal diplomacy with the highest possible authorities.”¹²⁰ So that’s exactly what they did. They worked their contacts, including those in the British Foreign Office, and made every effort to have their loved ones released. Her advice worked – both men were eventually released and survived the war. But Maria Theresa did not. She died on February 12, 1944 at age 88.¹²¹

Archduchesses Maria Annunziata & Elisabeth Amalie

Both of Maria Theresa’s daughters were still alive when she passed away. Presumably they were still co-owners of the necklace and made joint decisions regarding its fate.

Maria Annunziata, Maria Theresa’s older daughter, had never married. In the family, she was known as “Miana.” She had been engaged at one point to Duke Siegfried August in Bavaria. But when an old head injury from a serious riding accident began to change his personality, she broke things off.¹²²

Luckily, she didn’t need a husband for financial support – she had a job that paid quite well. She was the Abbess of the Theresian Royal and Imperial Ladies Chapter of the Castle of Prague. Founded in 1755 by Empress Maria Theresa, this Catholic religious order was created to provide a home for a small number of unmarried daughters of poor noblemen. The order was run by an Abbess, who was always an archduchess selected by the emperor. The role was largely ceremonial, and any of the women were free to leave and marry if they wished. The role provided an income for the Abbess as long as she didn’t leave the order to marry.

One perk of the job was the status it conveyed, equivalent to that of a married woman. It allowed Maria Annunziata to fill the role of first lady of the Austrian court from 1906 to 1911, after her widowed mother and widowed sister-in-law Maria Josepha were no longer able to do so.¹²³ During those years, Maria Annunziata acted as hostess for the emperor, greeting and entertaining world leaders, diplomats, and other court visitors.

Her role as Abbess ended when the order was officially shuttered in 1919, but by that time, Maria Annunziata had already left Austria and fled with her mother to Switzerland.¹²⁴

By 1922, she had made her way back to Austria, dividing her time between Vienna and her family’s Alpine hunting lodge.¹²⁵ After World War II, she left Vienna forever and moved full-time to the hunting lodge. She also visited family in Liechtenstein, where one of her nieces said, “Aunt Miana was like a second mother to us. You could ask her anything, she was very intelligent and educated.”¹²⁶ The reason she spent so much time in Liechtenstein was because her sister, Elisabeth Amalie, had married one of its princes in 1903.

Liechtenstein has an interesting story because its ruling family essentially purchased the territory to become sovereign princes. The family bears the name of its castle, located south of Vienna. In 1608, the head of the family- Karl – was made a prince by the Hapsburg emperor in return for his services as a territorial governor. But the title of prince wasn’t enough – he wanted to be a ruling prince with territory of his own. So he started looking for one he could buy, preferably one of the many small domains in the Holy Roman Empire.

Karl’s son eventually accomplished the task, buying two small neighboring domains in an Alpine valley tucked between Switzerland and Austria. In 1719, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI united those domains into a single principality and renamed it Liechtenstein. The family had now achieved its goal – they were sovereign princes.¹²⁷

But just because they owned this new territory didn’t mean they lived there – or ever even visited. Most of the early sovereign princes lived in Vienna, where the family owned two palaces, or in Bohemia, where they owned millions of acres of land and 360 villages.¹²⁸ Throughout the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, Liechtenstein was almost an afterthought to the family; what truly mattered was the pomp, prestige, and wealth of the Viennese court. That began to change in the mid-19^th century, when Prince Johann II adopted a policy of military neutrality and got rid of the standing army in 1868. After all, the principality had fewer than 20,000 people – there was no way it could resist the army of a country like France or Austria.¹²⁹ Johann II also invested 75 million Swiss francs into the country to modernize it and grow its industry.¹³⁰

Elisabeth Amalie had married Prince Alois, Johann II’s great-nephew.

Since Johann had never married, and his younger brother had no children, it was expected that Alois would one day inherit the throne. We’ve already seen how the Viennese court viewed Franz Ferdinand’s marriage to Sophie Chotek. Some at court felt this was unequal marriage, too, but not Franz Josef. He attended Elisabeth Amalie’s wedding to put a stop to that sort of talk.¹³¹ After all the struggle and controversy over Franz Ferdinand’s romance, he may have just been happy that Elisabeth Amalie chose a husband who at least had a shot at a crown, albeit over a 61-square mile principality.¹³² The marriage was a happy one and Elisabeth and Alois had eight children.

As the years passed, all the speculation about who might inherit the throne proved a bit premature as Prince Johann II turned out to be a very long-lived ruler. He remained on the throne through World War I and the revolutions that toppled the monarchies of Germany and Austria. Well aware that neutrality had saved his throne, he took steps to deepen his country’s ties to neutral Switzerland, entering into a customs union and making the Swiss franc his country’s official currency.¹³³

After a long and successful reign, Johann II died in 1929. The throne now passed to his brother, Franz I. But Franz was already in his 70s and had no children, so after his 10-year reign, it passed to Elisabeth Amalie’s son in 1938. Elisabeth Amalie’s husband should have been next in line, but he had already renounced his right to the title, fearing he was too old to reign.

At age 32, Elisabeth Amalie’s son, Franz-Josef II, took charge as the chaos of World War II engulfed Europe. He was the first reigning prince to live full-time in his country, a decision probably made easy when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. During the war, Liechtenstein remained neutral. What else could it do, with a population of about 15,000 people and 4 police officers?¹³⁴ It was a decision that may have saved the country. In 1945, the family’s Austrian lands were seized as German property. The family took another big financial hit when their ancestral estates in Czechoslovakia were nationalized by the government.¹³⁵ These losses may have been a contributing factor in the decision to sell the necklace.

In 1948, four years after Maria Theresa’s death, her grandson, Prince Franz-Josef II, offered the diamond necklace for sale. Presumably he acted as an agent on behalf of his mother and his aunt, who were both still alive at the time. This time, the necklace would leave Austria and return to the country of its origin.

Paul-Louis Weiller

Born in 1893, Paul-Louis Weiller was destined to be an aviator. His father, a wealthy industrialist, had supported the Wright brothers during their early test flights in France. Weiller learned to fly just in time to become a reconnaissance pilot during World War I. In the air, he even battled the famous Red Baron. Weiller was shot down five times, but survived every crash.¹³⁶

After the war, he continued working in aviation, managing the Gnome-et-Rhône engine factories and helping launch commercial air flights in France.¹³⁷

In 1922, he married a Romanian aristocrat, Princess Alexandra Ghika, and had a daughter, Marie, in 1924. The relationship didn’t last, however, and their marriage was dissolved in 1931.¹³⁸ It’s probably not a coincidence that’s the year he met “Miss Europe,” a Greek model named Aliki Diplarakou. He told his friends, “I am madly, hopelessly in love.”¹³⁹ They married in 1933 and had one child, a son, whose own daughter Sibilla would grow up to marry Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg.

Everything changed when the Nazis invaded France during World War II. The Vichy Government interned Weiller, although his wife managed to escape their clutches. Aliki made it to the United States and got her husband a Cuban visa. He escaped from the Nazis in 1942, making his way to Morocco, then Cuba, and finally to their meet-up point in Montreal, Canada.¹⁴⁰ But Aliki wasn’t there. A messenger arrived to tell him she was in Nevada…divorcing him.

Despite this personal blow, he joined the French resistance and earned a medal awarded by Charles de Gaulle.¹⁴¹ In 1945, Aliki remarried to a British diplomat named John Russell.¹⁴² But Weiller didn’t accept that she had moved on. Because she’d gotten a US divorce, he claimed her new marriage wasn’t legal in France and started a long-running court battle to prove it. He was in the middle of that fight when the diamond necklace came up for sale.¹⁴³

Already a very wealthy collector of art and antiques, Weiller couldn’t resist the idea of adding this famous and historic necklace to his collection. He bought the necklace from Prince Franz-Josef and kept it for 12 years. Then, in 1960, he, too, put it up for sale. I can’t help but wonder if that decision was in any way motivated by the failure of his legal attempt to save his marriage. It’s another question in this necklace’s story that we’ll probably never answer. But now, let’s follow the necklace to its next buyer.

Harry Winston

When the necklace came up for sale again in 1960, jeweler Harry Winston snapped it up. Thankfully, he had no intention of breaking it up, unlike previous buyer David Michel.

In 1961, he displayed the necklace several times at society balls, museum events, and fashion shows. The necklace’s next owner was actually on the committee that organized one of its very first appearances at the Global Gala dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York.¹⁴⁴ Maybe she just needed a little more time to make up her mind to buy it, because later that same year, the necklace appeared in St. Paul, Minnesota on Mrs. F. John Ward for a hospital fundraiser.¹⁴⁵

It was probably in early 1962 that the necklace changed hands once more  – newspapers reported on rumors it had been sold that April, but the buyer wasn’t publicly confirmed until later that year.¹⁴⁶

Marjorie Merriweather Post

Born in 1887, Marjorie was the only child of entrepreneur Charles W. Post. Because of his frequent anxiety and general ill health, Charles went on to create a coffee substitute and, later, a cereal he believed would cure himself and others.¹⁴⁷ That cereal – Grape-Nuts – would earn him a fortune. When it came time to market his product, Charles used one of Marjorie’s old baby pictures in the ad.¹⁴⁸

Marjorie idolized her father, who taught her everything she needed to know about business from a young age. He took her to board meetings and quizzed her on his plans for the company. He did everything he could to ensure she would be a success when it came time for her to follow in his footsteps. By the time she was 15, her shares of company stock were worth almost $2,000,000.¹⁴⁹ It didn’t take Marjorie long to understand the value of money and what it could buy. As a teenager, she developed a taste for beautiful things like custom-made clothes, hats, shoes, and gloves. Later, that taste would expand to include jewels, art, and furniture.

Just as the year 1914 had brought tragedy to Maria Theresa, it brought heartbreak to Marjorie, too. She was devastated when her father died by suicide. At age 27, she was now the majority stockholder of the company that would become General Foods Corporation. She would go on to become one of the first women to sit on the Board of Directors of a major American corporation.¹⁵⁰ Her financial manager would later say of her, “She wanted to show the world that a woman could be a good businessperson and didn’t have to pretend to be a man.”¹⁵¹

Marjorie was willing to work hard, but she was also used to getting what she wanted. And a big part of what she wanted was to throw and attend fancy parties. She loved to be surrounded by beautiful things. A luxurious lifestyle was non-negotiable for Marjorie. And that began to grate on her first husband, Ed Close. They had married in 1905, when Marjorie was just eighteen.¹⁵²

Although they did have two daughters, children weren’t enough to keep their marriage together. Ed grew tired of the constant entertaining and would have preferred to skip the parties and spend time with his friends instead. As for Marjorie, she wanted someone who appreciated beautiful things as much as she did, and who wanted that active social life. After 14 years of marriage, Marjorie divorced Ed in 1919.

Neither one of them stayed single for long. Ed remarried that same year, and he and his new wife later became the grandparents of actress Glenn Close.¹⁵³ Marjorie fell in love with dashing financier E.F. Hutton and married him in 1920.

The couple had one daughter, Nadenia, who later became a famous actress under the name Dina Merrill. They also built a palatial new home in Florida called Mar-A-Lago – maybe you’ve heard of it.

She and Hutton were each incredibly wealthy in their own right, and with him, Marjorie felt she had a partner who also wanted to live a luxurious lifestyle. One time, when Queen Maud of Norway had lunch on Marjorie’s yacht, she gasped at the uniformed staff, luxurious surroundings, and impeccable table setting, with the finest crystal and porcelain. Maud said to Marjorie, “Why, you live like a queen, don’t you?”¹⁵⁴

In 1929, Marjorie fulfilled a lifelong dream and was presented to King George V and Queen Mary at court in London.¹⁵⁵ She never thought she’d be able to have this honor as a divorcée, but her British friends – including the Duchess of Sutherland – were able to make the arrangements. Marjorie’s daughter would later reveal that her mother had been practicing her curtsy for over a decade, just in case the opportunity should ever arise.¹⁵⁶ At her presentation, she wore a ring with a 21-carat emerald said to have belonged to Archduchess Sophie’s second son, Maximilian.¹⁵⁷

But the Great Depression changed the way Marjorie thought about money and the way she spent it. Instead of lavish parties and properties, she began focusing on helping others. She believed that people who had money also had a responsibility to use it for the greater good. She said, “Keep it moving, make it work, make it create, make it do good, and make it help in many hundreds of ways.”¹⁵⁸

And that’s exactly what she did. From 1929 to 1935, she funded a soup kitchen that gave seven hundred free meals every day to women and children in New York City.¹⁵⁹ She gave her money as well as her time to organizations like the American Red Cross, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Salvation Army. It was her anonymous donation of $100,000 that helped create the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Only later was that donation traced to her.¹⁶⁰

But Marjorie’s mindset shift didn’t bode well for her second marriage. As she grew more interested in charity and then politics, it became painfully obvious that she and Hutton didn’t see eye to eye politically. She tended to be more liberal, aligned with Roosevelt’s progressive policies, and Hutton tended to be more conservative. Then, when Marjorie found out he was cheating, she filed for divorce in 1935.¹⁶¹

But even as her second marriage was disintegrating, she met the next man she would marry. His name was Joseph Davies, a Washington, DC lawyer who served as legal counsel to General Foods.¹⁶² Joe had fallen for Marjorie at first sight, but their shared political beliefs drew them even closer. Joe wrote to her, “You are so extraordinary and so wonderful that I cannot believe that your love for me is something that has come to stay.”¹⁶³ They were married in 1935, the same year she divorced Hutton.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Joe as ambassador to the Soviet Union, Marjorie accompanied him to Moscow. There, she developed a deep and lasting love for Russian jewels and art, including items by Fabergé, which she began collecting. At age 50, Marjorie was literally on her hands and knees, crawling through Fabergé’s storerooms to sift through the jumbled mess of items left there after the revolution. She called the experience “a field day.”¹⁶⁴

Soviet art and antique dealers often sold items by weight, regardless of any historic value. She put her money to work and purchased quite a bit of furniture, art, and decorative objects. Later, in her Washington DC home, she served her guests with the Russian imperial table service and placed a gallery of Romanov portraits in her stairwell.¹⁶⁵ Today, there’s a whiff of controversy over the purchases she and Joe made and the American greed it revealed in the face of all the suffering of the Russian people under Joseph Stalin.¹⁶⁶

We also have two conflicting images of how Marjorie presented herself to the Soviets. Her stepdaughter said, “She learned not to wear so many jewels in front of the Communists. She was probably more simply dressed there than at any other time in her life and, for that reason, probably more beautiful.”¹⁶⁷ At the same time, her daughter Dina said, “They looked at Mother with her clothes and jewels and [wondered] if the tsars had come back.”¹⁶⁸

Which point of view is more accurate? Probably both. Marjorie loved and was accustomed to a life of wealth and luxury; by this point, it was ingrained in her personality. But she wasn’t blind to the hardship and poverty she saw in the Soviet Union, as well as the danger its citizens faced from Stalin’s relentless purges. Marjorie later said that she remembered hearing the bells on the wagons of the secret police, and the screams that followed from the apartments they visited.¹⁶⁹

In 1937, while on a break from her duties in Moscow, she attended the coronation of King George VI in London. She wore the same emerald ring that she had at her court presentation eight years earlier. But this time, after returning from an event at Buckingham Palace, she looked down at her hand and realized to her horror that the emerald was missing. Her staff called the palace and explained what had happened. The palace staff saved the day by locating the emerald and returning it to her.¹⁷⁰

After Moscow, Joe’s next diplomatic posting was in Brussels, Belgium. When Marjorie heard, she said, “Thank God! At least it’s got a king!”¹⁷¹ And she did indeed meet and socialize with the royal families of Belgium and Luxembourg during her stay. Joe became a golf buddy of King Leopold III of Belgium, and Marjorie made friends with Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg.¹⁷²

Everything changed in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland to start World War II. At the time, Marjorie was on leave in the U.S. and the State Department forbid the family members of any U.S. ambassador to return to Europe. Joe resigned his position as ambassador and took a job with the Secretary of State instead.¹⁷³ But even from across the ocean, Marjorie did what she could to help her new friends. When Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg and her six children feared capture by the Nazis, they fled to France, and eventually, to the U.S. Joe met them in Annapolis and Marjorie opened her home to them. The family arrived at her house on Long Island, where they stayed for months at her expense.¹⁷⁴

After the war, her relationship with Davies ran into trouble. As they aged, he grew more irritable, jealous, and controlling with her children.¹⁷⁵ When he got sick, it brought out their sharp disagreements over her belief in Christian Science. Marjorie believed maintaining a positive outlook at all times was a requirement to stay healthy, but that didn’t help Joe, whose emotions only grew darker as he got sicker. In 1955, Marjorie divorced him. Three years later, at age 71, she married again to a Pittsburgh businessman named Herbert May.

By this point in her life, she had achieved her goal of being surrounded by beauty. Her homes in Florida, New York, Washington DC, and Long Island were filled with art and priceless antiques. She still loved entertaining, but was strict about getting eight hours of sleep every night and would leave her own parties at 11 pm.¹⁷⁶ She never drank and took pride in her still-youthful appearance. Of her General Foods board meetings, she said, “I always have to get dressed up for my boys’ meetings. You know they like a woman to look nice, even if they don’t say anything about it.”¹⁷⁷

When Harry Winston put the Napoleon diamond necklace up for sale, Marjorie bought it and donated it to the Smithsonian Institute. Other royal treasures she donated included Princess Stephanie of Belgium’s wedding veil, the diamond tiara Napoleon gave Marie Louise as a wedding present, a pair of diamond earrings that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, and the emerald she’d almost lost at Buckingham Palace. The director of the National Symphony once said of her, “Whenever Marjorie touches anything, you know it’s been touched by royalty.”¹⁷⁸

Her gifts jump-started the Smithsonian’s collection of gemstones. She also donated her Washington, DC home, Hillwood, to the Smithsonian. The museum returned it to the Post Foundation, and today, it’s a museum housing her collection of furniture, art, antiques, and pieces that belonged to the Russian imperial family. She left her Palm Beach house, Mar-A-Lago, to the U.S. government, hoping it would become a second White House. Unable to pay to maintain it, however, the government returned it to the Post Foundation, which put it up for sale in 1985.¹⁷⁹

Looking back on her life, Marjorie said, “I had many beautiful things, but choosing a husband, I never had much luck.”¹⁸⁰ Her biographers attribute this to her deep love for her father. No man she picked could ever live up to his memory. Marjorie passed away in 1973.

Today

The Napoleon diamond necklace is on display in the Gem Gallery at the National Museum of Natural History. The museum also has the necklace’s original green leather case, complete with Marie Louise’s initials, although the case isn’t on display for us to see.¹⁸¹ If you’re in Washington DC, it’s worth a stop to see the sparkling stones that entranced Empress Marie Louise, Archduchess Sophie, Archduchess Maria Theresa, Paul-Louis Weiller, and Marjorie Merriweather Post.

I added my name to the long list of people entranced by this necklace while on a business trip to DC in 2002. If you’ve seen it in person, too, tell me what you thought in the comments! If you have yet to see the necklace, I hope this video makes the experience even more special for you, now that you know the stories of the people who owned and wore it.

The End

About the Author

Jenni Wiltz

Facebook YouTube Instagram LinkedIn

Hi, I’m Jenni Wiltz, an award-winning writer obsessed with little-known royal women. With three degrees, including a master’s in English, I’m using my love of research and storytelling to bring you the stories of fascinating royal women and their jewels. I have two decades of experience in marketing and writing, with awards for my short fiction, romantic suspense, and creative non-fiction.

Notes for the Napoleon Diamond Necklace

1. Jay, 26
2. Roberts, 564
3. “Napoleon Diamond Necklace,” National Museum of Natural History, https://naturalhistory.si.edu/explore/collections/geogallery/10002696
4. Appraisal: Ibid. Budget: Roberts, 541 (note 80). Most sources for the necklace say this amount is equal to a full year of Marie Louise’s household budget, but if you look at the actual amount for her household given in the note in Roberts, it’s only about half.
5. Roberts, 539
6. Ibid
7. Jay, 11
8. Roberts, 541
9. Palmer, 169
10. Jay, 81
11. Jay, 85
12. Palmer, 169
13. Palmer, 172
14. Roberts, 714; Palmer, 173
15. Palmer, 176
16. Jay, 133; Palmer, 183
17. Palmer, 184
18. Palmer, 198
19. Roberts, 780; Palmer, 201
20. Palmer, 205
21. Palmer, 204
22. Jay, 275
23. Palmer, 209
24. Palmer, 221
25. Bruce, 500
26. Jay, 423
27. Jay, 424; Palmer, 229
28. Jay, 425; Palmer, 230
29. Palmer, 233
30. Bled, ch. 1, “Bavarian youth”
31. Ibid
32. Ibid; Van der Kiste, 14
33. Palmer, 219
34. Haslip, 16
35. Haslip, 21; Bled, ch. 2, “The first birth”
36. Bled, ch. 2, “The first birth”
37. Ibid
38. Ibid
39. Ibid
40. Haslip, 21
41. Bled, ch. 2, “Three other sons”
42. Bled, ch. 4, “The new emperor”
43. Haslip, 23
44. Bled, ch. 5, “The revolutionary wave”
45. Bled, ch. 5, “The ascent to the throne”
46. “Napoleon Diamond Necklace,” National Museum of Natural History, https://naturalhistory.si.edu/explore/collections/geogallery/10002696
47. Bled, ch. 11, “Death”
48. Bled, ch. 4, “Franz Joseph and his brothers”
49. Bled, ch. 8, “Early years”
50. “The Corpse of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria,” Belfast Morning News, Oct. 1, 1858, p. 4
51. Ibid; Lindheim, 97
52. Lindheim, 97
53. Lindheim, 91
54. Bled, ch. 11, “The family”
55. Ibid
56. Nemec, 22
57. King & Woolmans, 11
58. Cantacuzène, 129
59. Fugger, 82
60. Fugger, 83
61. “Napoleon Diamond Necklace,” National Museum of Natural History, https://naturalhistory.si.edu/explore/collections/geogallery/10002696
62. Lindheim, 132
63. King & Woolmans, 27
64. Ibid
65. Lindheim, 343
66. Nemec, 48
67. King & Woolmans, 48
68. King & Woolmans, 53; Longo, 37
69. King & Woolmans, 53
70. King & Woolmans, 59
71. Ibid
72. King & Woolmans, 60
73. Ibid
74. King & Woolmans, 115
75. Longo, 76
76. Ibid
77. Van der Kiste, 271
78. King & Woolmans, 222
79. Longo, 231
80. Nemec, pp. 236-8
81. Nemec, pp. 236-7
82. Post, ch. “Napoleon Diamond Necklace”
83. Nemec, 72
84. Reports vary wildly on the exact amount she wanted for the necklace, ranging from $300k to $450k, but she clearly wanted more than the pure value of the diamonds. See: “Archduchess Held Gems at $300,000,” The New York Times, March 6, 1930, p. 15; “Receiver Is Asked for Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 11, 1930, p. 29
85. Baronte, ch. XII
86. Kerr, Adelaide. “Necklace Napoleon Gave to Marie Louise Lies in Vault of New York Bank,” Daily Sentinel, Nov. 27, 1929, p. 1
87. Baronte, ch. XII
88. Baronte, ch. XIII
89. “Napoleon Necklace Reported Missing; Crain Orders Hunt,” The New York Times, March 1, 1930, p. 1
90. Ibid
91. “Archduke Is Freed in Gem Theft Trial,” The New York Times, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 27
92. Baronte, ch. XIV
93. Harding, pp. 37, 62
94. “American Millionaire Socks Duke on Jaw, Heaves Him Out,” Morning Times and Red Bluff Sentinel, Feb. 15, 1928 p. 2
95. Again, that price varies wildly by source. See also: “Owner Got $7,270 for Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 4, p. 25
96. Sources also disagree on the day Anna arrived. See: “Owner Got $7,270 for Napoleon Gems” and “Michel Questioned on Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 7, 1930, p. 48
97. King & Woolmans, 26; “Archduchess Held Gems…”, The New York Times
98. Baronte, ch. XIV
99. “Napoleon Necklace Reported Missing; Crain Orders Hunt,” The New York Times; “Jail Irks Archduke,” The New York Times, July 19, 1930, p. 17
100. “Michel Questioned on Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times
101. “Archduke Fights Gem Theft Charge,” The New York Times, June 4, 1930, p. 15
102. Baronte, ch. XIV
103. Ibid
104. The amount Maria Theresa received appears as $7,250 or $7,270, depending on the source. At least one article used one figure in the headline and the second figure in the article text. See: “Napoleon Necklace Returned By Buyer,” The New York Times, March 22, 1930, p. 3; Gaillou and Post, p. 353.
105. “Napoleon Necklace Returned By Buyer,” The New York Times
106. “Bonaparte Jewels Found, Seller Gone,” The New York Times, March 2, 1930, pp. 1, 27
107. “Leopold Free Upon Necklace Theft Charge,” The Republican, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 19; “Napoleon Necklace Returned By Buyer,” The New York Times
108. “Denies Publicity Trick in Napoleon Gem Sale,” The New York Times, April 17, 1930, p. 8
109. “Napoleon Necklace Reported Missing; Crain Orders Hunt,” The New York Times
110. “Archduke Fails to Appear,” The New York Times, April 24, 1930, p. 32
111. “Archduke in Court in Necklace Case,” The New York Times, April 25, 1930, p. 19
112. “Jail Irks Archduke,” The New York Times
113. “Leopold Released on Bail Once More,” The New York Times, July 23, 1930, p. 7
114. “Leopold Free Upon Necklace Theft Charge,” The Republican
115. Ibid; also: “Archduke on Trial for Necklace Sale,” The New York Times, Nov. 20, 1930, p. 28
116. “Leopold Freed of Larceny Charges,” Mount Vernon Argus, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 15
117. “Archduke Has Been Expelled From Austria,” Waterbury Democrat, May 21, 1931, p. 1
118. “Milestones,” Time, May 18, 1931.
119. Longo, pp. 143, 148
120. Longo, 142
121. Longo, pp. 143, 170
122. Nemec, pp. 94-5, 102-4
123. Nemec, pp. 48, 125
124. Nemec, 50
125. Nemec, 259
126. Nemec, 121
127. Boulay and Jaudel, pp. 263, 267
128. Boulay and Jaudel, 264
129. Ibid
130. Boulay and Jaudel, 267
131. King & Woolmans, 282
132. Boulay and Jaudel, 263
133. Zeepvat, 26
134. Boulay and Jaudel, 268
135. Zeepvat, pp. 26, 42
136. Cooper, “Obituary”
137. Cooper, “Obituary”; Christies.com, “The collection…”
138. Cooper, “Obituary”
139. “Millionaire’s 20-Year Vow,” Weekly Dispatch (London), Dec. 19, 1948, p. 5
140. “Diplarakos/Weiller,” Sousa Mendes Foundation
141. Christies.com, “The collection…”
142. “Millionaire’s 20-Year Vow,” Weekly Dispatch
143. “Tangled,” Daily Mirror (London), Jan. 13, 1960, p. 2; “Marriage tangle,” Sunday Express (London), Oct. 16, 1955, p. 3
144. Randolph, “Diamond to Be door Prize for 400,” Daily News (New York), Jan. 22, 1961, p. 16
145. Morris, “Display of Historic Jewelry Crowns Benefit,” Minneapolis Star, Oct. 27, 1961, p. 23
146. Sheppard, “Bushels Of Jewels,” The Times Argus (Barre-Montpelier, VT), April 12, 1962, p. 20
147. “C.W. Post a Suicide in California Home,” The New York Times, May 10, 1914, p. 12
148. Rubin, ch. 3, “A Battle Creek Girlhoood”
149. Rubin, ch. 5, “Twenty-seven Boils”
150. Rubin, Foreword
151. Rubin, ch. 17, “Mrs. Joseph Davies”
152. “Greenwich Woman Gets a Divorce,” Port Chester Daily Item, Nov. 10, 1919, p. 1
153. Rubin, ch. 9, “Daring propositions”
154. “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times, Sept. 13, 1973, p. 50
155. “Girl Who Once Lived Here Is To Meet Queen,” The Enquirer and Evening News (Battle Creek, MI), June 26, 1929, p. 3
156. Rubin, ch. 14, “‘Despite the Forty Added Summers'”
157. Post, ch. “Maximilian Emerald”
158. Rubin, ch. 15, “‘Lady Bountiful'”
159. Tzouliadis, ch. 10, “A Dispassionate Observer”; “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times
160. Organizations and donation: Rubin, Foreword. Later traced: “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times
161. Rubin, ch. 16, “Ambassadress to the Soviet Union”
162. Tzouliadis, ch. 10, “A Dispassionate Observer”
163. Rubin, ch. 17, “Mrs. Joseph Davies”
164. Rubin, ch. 18, “First ‘Ambassadress’ to the Soviet Union”
165. “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times
166. Tzouliadis, ch. 10, “A Dispassionate Observer”
167. Rubin, ch. 18, “First ‘Ambassadress’ to the Soviet Union”
168. Ibid
169. Ibid
170. Post, ch. “Maximilian Emerald”
171. Rubin, ch. 20, “Mission Fulfilled”
172. Ibid
173. Ibid
174. Ibid; “Luxembourg Royalty Welcomed,” Buffalo Evening News, July 25, 1940, p. 14; “Haven in U.S. Found by Royal Refugees from Luxembourg,” Ithaca Journal, July 29, 1940, p. 4
175. Rubin, ch. 22, “Transformations”
176. Rubin, ch. 1, “‘A Healthy, Hearty, and Handsome Girl'”
177. Rubin, ch. 16, “Ambassadress to the Soviet Union”
178. “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times
179. “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times; Rubin, ch. 27, “Careful Housekeeping”
180. Rubin, Foreword
181. Post, ch. “The Napoleon Diamond Necklace”

Sources for the Napoleon Diamond Necklace

Any URL after the listing for a book is a free, public domain copy you can read online. Yay! Any link in the title of a book is my Amazon affiliate link.

Books & Journal Articles

Baronte, Gervée. Life and Loves of a Prodigal Daughter. (URL)

Bled, Jean-Paul. Sophie de Habsbourg: L’impératrice de l’ombre. Paris: Perrin, 2018. (eBook)

Boulay, Laure and Françoise Jaudel. Tr. Linda Dannenberg. There Are Still Kings: The Ten Royal Families of Europe. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1984.

Bruce, Evangeline. Napoleon and Josephine: An Improbable Marriage. New York: Kensington Books, 1995.

Cantacuzène, Julia. My Life Here and There. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921. (URL)

Crankshaw, Edward. The Fall of the House of Habsburg. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.

Fugger, Nora. Tr. J.A. Galston. The Glory of the Habsburgs. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1932. (URL)

Gaillou, Eloïse; Post, Jeffrey; “An Examination of the Napoleon Diamond Necklace”, Gems and Gemology (Winter 2007), p. 353. (URL)

Harding, Bertita. Lost Waltz: A Story of Exile. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1944. (URL)

Haslip, Joan. The Crown of Mexico. New York: Avon Books, 1971.

Jay, Deborah. Napoleon’s Other Wife: The story of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the Lesser Known Wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. Rosa’s Press, 2015.

King, Greg and Sue Woolmans. The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013.

Larisch, Marie. My Past. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1913. (URL)

Lindheim, Alfred von. Erzherzog Carl Ludwig 1833-1896. Wien: KK Hof. Und Staatsdruckerel, 1897. (URL)

Longo, James. Hitler and the Habsburgs: The Führer’s Vendetta Against the Austrian Royals. New York: Diversion Books, 2018.

Marek, George R. The Eagles Die: Franz Joseph, Elisabeth, and Their Austria. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Nemec, Norbert. Erzherzogin Maria Annunziata (1876-1961): Die unbekannte Nichte Kaiser Franz Josephs I. Böhlau: Böhlau Verlag, 2010.

Palmer, Alan. Napoleon and Marie Louise: The Second Empress. Place: Lume Books, 2018. (eBook)

Post, Jeffrey Edward. The Smithsonian National Gem Collection – Unearthed: Surprising Stories Behind the Jewels. New York: Abrams, 2021. (eBook)

Radziwill, Princess Catherine. The Austrian Court from Within. London: Cassell and Company, 1916. (URL)

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.

Stuart, Nancy Rubin. American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2004. (eBook)

Tzouliadis, Tim. The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. (eBook)

Van der Kiste, John. Emperor Francis Joseph: Life, Death and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2013. (eBook)

Zeepvat, Charlotte. “The Princely House of Liechtenstein – A Family Album.” Royalty Digest Quarterly, no. 1(2021): 25-50.

Newspaper Articles

“American Millionaire Socks Duke on Jaw, Heaves Him Out,” Morning Times and Red Bluff Sentinel, Feb. 15, 1928 p. 2.
“Archduchess Held Gems at $300,000,” The New York Times, March 6, 1930, p. 15.
“Archduke Fails to Appear,” The New York Times, April 24, 1930, p. 32.
“Archduke Fights Gem Theft Charge,” The New York Times, June 4, 1930, p. 15.
“Archduke Has Been Expelled From Austria,” Waterbury Democrat, May 21, 1931, p. 1.
“Archduke in Court in Necklace Case,” The New York Times, April 25, 1930, p. 19.
“Archduke Is Freed in Gem Theft Trial,” The New York Times, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 27.
“Archduke on Trial for Necklace Sale,” The New York Times, Nov. 20, 1930, p. 28.
“Bonaparte Jewels Found, Seller Gone,” The New York Times, March 2, 1930, pp. 1, 27.
“The Corpse of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria,” Belfast Morning News, Oct. 1, 1858, p. 4.
“C.W. Post a Suicide in California Home,” The New York Times, May 10, 1914, p. 12.
“Denies Publicity Trick in Napoleon Gem Sale,” The New York Times, April 17, 1930, p. 8.
“Girl Who Once Lived Here Is To Meet Queen,” The Enquirer and Evening News (Battle Creek, MI), June 26, 1929, p. 3.
“Greenwich Woman Gets a Divorce,” Port Chester Daily Item, Nov. 10, 1919, p. 1.
“Haven in U.S. Found by Royal Refugees from Luxembourg,” Ithaca Journal, July 29, 1940, p. 4.
“Jail Irks Archduke,” The New York Times, July 19, 1930, p. 17.
Kerr, Adelaide. “Necklace Napoleon Gave to Marie Louise Lies in Vault of New York Bank.” Daily Sentinel, Nov. 27, 1929, p. 1.
“Leopold Freed of Larceny Charges,” Mount Vernon Argus, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 15.
“Leopold Free Upon Necklace Theft Charge,” The Republican, Nov. 25, 1930, p. 19.
“Leopold Released on Bail Once More,” The New York Times, July 23, 1930, p. 7.
“Luxembourg Royalty Welcomed,” Buffalo Evening News, July 25, 1940, p. 14.
“Marriage tangle,” Sunday Express (London), Oct. 16, 1955, p. 3.
“Michel Questioned on Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 7, 1930, p. 48.
“Milestones,” Time, May 18, 1931. (URL)
“Millionaire’s 20-Year Vow,” Weekly Dispatch (London), Dec. 19, 1948, p. 5.
Morris, Margaret. “Display of Historic Jewelry Crowns Benefit,” Minneapolis Star, Oct. 27, 1961, p. 23.
“Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times, Sept. 13, 1973, p. 50.
“Napoleon Necklace Reported Missing; Crain Orders Hunt,” The New York Times, March 1, 1930, p 1.
“Napoleon Necklace Returned By Buyer,” The New York Times, March 22, 1930 p. 3.
“Owner Got $7,270 for Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 4, p. 25.
Randolph, Nancy. “Diamond to Be door Prize for 400,” Daily News (New York), Jan. 22, 1961, p. 16.
“Receiver Is Asked for Napoleon Gems,” The New York Times, March 11, 1930, p. 29.
Sheppard, Eugenia. “Bushels Of Jewels,” The Times Argus (Barre-Montpelier, VT), April 12, 1962, p. 20.
“Tangled,” Daily Mirror (London), Jan. 13, 1960, p. 2.

Online Articles

“The collection of Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller.” Christies.com, Sep. 9, 2020. (URL)

Cooper, Artemis. “Obituary: Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller.” Independent, Dec. 11, 1993. (URL)

“Diplarakos/Weiller.” Sousa Mendes Foundation. (URL)

“Napoleon Diamond Necklace.” National Museum of Natural History. (URL)

Affiliate Disclaimer

I’m a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This content may contain affiliate links, particularly in the Sources section. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you choose to buy using my affiliate link, the seller will pay me a small additional amount at absolutely no cost to you. Thank you for supporting The Girl in the Tiara!

Become a Patreon supporter for deleted scenes, bonus posts, book reviews, and more!

Get Bonus Content

Credits

• Music in post audio: licensed through Artlist.io
• Header image: All images public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
• Images throughout: All images public domain via Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise noted.
• CC BY-SA 2.0 license; CC BY-4.0 license

You Might Also Enjoy