The Curse of the Sancy Diamond - Ep. 2

A diamond that promised invincibility… and left a trail of war, betrayal, and ruin across centuries of European history. 

In this episode of Cursed...ish, Daniel and Angela investigate the legend of one of the world’s most famous cursed diamonds: the Sancy Diamond. 

We begin in medieval Europe, where the stone, once known as the The Balle de Flandres, became associated with kings, warlords, and nobles convinced it would make them unstoppable. Instead, its owners seem to encounter a suspicious pattern of violent deaths, financial collapse, political disaster, and battlefield catastrophe. 

The story takes us through the chaotic life of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whose obsession with power, and rumored possession of the diamond, ended in disaster at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, where his body was discovered half-frozen in a river after a brutal defeat. 

From there, the diamond’s history only gets stranger. 

The stone allegedly survives theft, murder, and political upheaval, including a bizarre story of a messenger who swallowed the gem to keep it from robbers. Over the following centuries, the Sancy Diamond passes through the hands of European royalty, financiers, and aristocrats, appearing among the French crown jewels, disappearing during the French Revolution, and eventually landing in the collection of the Astor family—whose connection to the Titanic disaster adds yet another eerie chapter to the diamond’s reputation. 

Today, the Sancy Diamond rests in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it quietly sits in a display case… waiting. 

But does the stone actually carry a supernatural curse? 

Or is its dark reputation simply the result of powerful people making dangerous decisions in the pursuit of wealth, power, and conquest? 

As always on Cursed...ish, we follow the history, examine the legend, and ask the question: 

Is the Sancy Diamond truly cursed, or just cursed...ish? 

Questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share? Send us a hex at uhoh@cursedish.com.

The hosts of Cursed...ish are not responsible for any misfortunes that may befall you while listening to this podcast. By listening to Cursed...ish, you assume all risk of bad luck, ill omens, and unexplained catastrophes.

*Terms and conditions may be upheld by unknown forces.

Transcript

Angela 0:00

They're formed under immense pressure over billions of years in the earth, and then humans dig them up, cut them down, and then some of them just get out there and start wreaking havoc.

Daniel 0:10

I mean, I sorta get it. It's like, hey, I was just chilling here in the ground, and then you got up in my business.

Angela 0:27

Welcome, Accursed Ones, to Cursed Ish, a podcast about misfortune, mystery, and the stories we tell when bad luck stops feeling random. I'm Angela Mattes.

Daniel 0:37

And I'm Daniel Stevens.

Angela 0:38

Now before we dive into the damned, Daniel, did anything cursed happen to you this week?

Daniel 0:44

Oh Lord, Angela. So I was last night, I was, you know, just doing some prep for our recording session today, just making sure all my I's were dotted and all my T's were crossed, as I like to do. And it was a little late, but I was a little hungry, had an early dinner. Um, and so then I thought to myself, I'm gonna heat myself up some something to eat. And I looked in my fridge and I had some leftover chicken nuggets. So I was like, oh, let me get these before they go bad. They only I had them from earlier in the day.

Angela 1:13

Nothing cursed shall come upon thee while eating chicken nuggets.

Daniel 1:17

Exactly, chicken nuggets. They are so safe. So I put them in the oven because of course I'm not gonna put them in the microwave. I'm a chef. I put them in the oven. And so I was heating them up, and somehow when I was grabbing the the the tray of the pan, yeah, the pan of them, I burned my hand pretty bad on the okay, whatever, a little burn, no big deal. So I went and I started running, you know, cold water over it. Right. You know, hurting, and I was like, okay, this hurts. Maybe I should wrap some ice in a towel. I know you're not supposed to put ice directly on it, but uh just some ice and a towel. So I went to my freezer and I opened the freezer up and I realized that my refrigerator had apparently like turned off or like freaked out. The lights were on, but it was war it was like warm in there, and I could see the ice was melting. So I'm like running water on my hand.

Angela 2:09

Your entire kitchen has fallen apart.

Daniel 2:11

Exactly. I'm like trying to cure my hand, and then I'm realizing my fridge is doing something, so I ended up s messing with the fridge, fixing my hand all night. I was up till the wee hours of the morning making sure the fridge was ra running again. But we have we have frozen we have frozen food in the freezer and the fridge is good again, and my hand is uh only minorly blisted.

Angela 2:33

Alright. Well, how about you?

Daniel 2:35

Any any cursed any any cursed uh events in your week?

Angela 2:40

Yeah, yeah. I got jet lag coming home from Florida. Like, how does that even happen? It's a one-hour time change.

Daniel 2:52

What are you doing?

Angela 2:53

I went to Florida for two days and was just fucked for two days after.

Daniel 2:58

That sounds like a special thing.

Angela 2:59

I'm gonna vote. I'm gonna vote that's also in the cursed categories.

Daniel 3:04

Okay, why don't we why don't we get into a real curse, maybe?

Angela 3:08

Okay, so when I first started my research, I was actually looking into a different famously cursed diamond. But as I learn more about it, I found out that there are actually a lot of cursed diamonds. Like not just one or two. It's a full-on genre.

Daniel 3:21

So we've got a lot to look forward to over the coming weeks and months and years.

Angela 3:26

We will have lots of diamond-related episodes. But yeah, I mean, I mean, of course, we're all familiar with diamonds. They're formed under immense pressure over billions of years in the earth, and then humans dig them up, cut them down, and then some of them just get out there and start wreaking havoc.

Daniel 3:41

I mean, I sort of get it. It's like, hey, I was just chilling here in the ground, and then you gotta play my business. Who do these humans think they are? Yeah, billions of years and then.

Angela 3:52

And yeah, and some of those diamonds, some of those diamonds are uh kicking back. It's kind of like a geological fuck around and find out. Exactly. Um so today's diamond is one of the most famous of these supposedly cursed stones. Uh it's called the Sansy Diamond.

Daniel 4:08

Ooh. Sounds fancy.

Angela 4:10

So this the Sansy Diamond, yeah, the fancy Sansi. So the Sansy Diamond is a pale yellow pear-shaped diamond weighing just over 55 carats, which is huge. Like when you think about it, your average, like you know, when you see celebrities that have those big, huge, crazy sized rings, they're like 10 or 20 carats tops, 55 carats. So this thing is like a little goose egg. It's small enough to sit in the palm of your hand, but but important enough to bankrupt nobles and finance armies and destroy the people who owned it. So it is she may be small yet mighty.

Daniel 4:47

Can I just say one thing? I don't ever want a description of my physical being to be to include pear-shaped and then my weight, just for future records.

Angela 4:56

And you're a guy, try to make a woman. Yeah, sorry, Sans. So apparently, actually, this was not a super important fact, but it is sort of interesting, is that prior to about 1400, just about all of the diamonds came from India. So I looked into it to see if there was something related to like, like, are all of these cursed diamonds only coming from India? And it's not mystical, it's literally just the way the world worked. So um, like the geology was just right in India. Like, naturally, diamonds were formed much more easily in I don't know, in India. And um, it was also on trade routes.

Daniel 5:36

So yeah, I'm sure the socio-political aspects of what was going on in the world led to those being mindful.

Angela 5:42

Right. But when you think about it, like all of the diamonds up until about 14 or 1500 were coming out of India, and most of those diamonds, like it was around the 1300, 1400s when a lot of the crown jewels were made. So, like the majority of the cursed diamonds that we're going to talk about, or even just all of the famous jewels that you see, like if you watch a coronation in England or something, or if you go see the if you go to the Louvre and you go to the Apollo room, all of these jewels are pretty much coming from the same places.

Daniel 6:10

And there's obviously then you know, like the threat of colonialism right there. It's signed, it's sort of like, yeah, like like you said, a big fucker on and find out. Like they went to these other places and took all their their jewels and then they took all their jewels. I mean, yeah, all the things in those museums and all throughout Europe, the British Museum, yeah.

Angela 6:30

Yeah, but I looked into it, it's not exotic or ominous, it's just the way it worked. Anyway, at the height of its fame, the Sansi diamond was believed to grant invincibility to its owner, so it made it obviously very attractive to the exact wrong people. So kings, warlords, men who believe they were chosen by history, they wanted to get their hands on this diamond. And so that's where the irony kind of starts to creep in because instead of making its owners invincible, the diamond eventually became associated with financial ruin, violent death, and political collapse.

Daniel 7:03

So I kind of love the idea that society pulled a little like honeypot situation.

Angela 7:08

Like, get this diamond, it's great. Just kidding. I know, and the Sansi Diamond was like, oh baby, you thought. Yeah. Like, oh honey, no.

Daniel 7:16

They saw you coming. The Sansi saw you coming.

Angela 7:19

Yeah, she was like, not today, not today. Um Yeah, and actually, our story does not actually does not begin with the name the Sansy Diamond. So several centuries earlier, the gem was actually known as the Bal de Flandre. So like the ball of Flanders, I suppose, if you're talking in white girl speak.

Daniel 7:38

So this is this is her Bal de Flandre era, basically.

Angela 7:42

Yes, it's her Ball de Flandre era. And at that time, it was believed that the diamond weighed about 100 carats. So literally somewhere along the way, the diamond lost half its mass, which I've in my in my research about diamonds, I have found that this happens a lot where a diamond will start out as like the size of a goose egg, and then through time and different ownership and like following different trends, they will chop it down to almost half its size. And like maybe it makes sense at the time, but like what the fuck is that all about? Like a 50% loss. That's like egregious.

Daniel 8:15

Uh yeah, that I maybe, yeah, maybe the idea of more smaller gems made sense, but also could there just be a sort of catfishing thing going on, like, oh, my gem is so big, and then expectation versus reality.

Angela 8:26

Because you're right, we really do only have like records and things to go off of. But I don't know. I feel like you're on a kick today, like you were all butthurt about being pear-shaped and talking about weight, and now suddenly you're totally on the side of the Baldeplandre as she loses half her weight.

Daniel 8:42

I'm just I am just it's it's just it's funny to me. She had a glow up. It seems like the way we talk about these diamonds almost mirrors the way that like we we sometimes talk about human bodies.

Angela 8:53

Yeah, she got on some GLP ones and now she became a little Sancy girl. Anyway, getting back around to business. So um, in its early recorded history, the Belle de Flandre appears as part of the dowry of a woman named Valentina Visconti. And it was given to her husband Louis I, the Duke of Orleans, in 1398 when they got married. So, of course, this woman's name is Valentina Visconti. The Sansi diamond, the Belle de Flandre basically was not fucking around with her because nothing bad happened to her. That's not where the curse starts at all. Um she was blessed. She didn't she didn't do it, she was blessed.

Daniel 9:33

I mean, do we know if she was a horrible person?

Angela 9:37

Do we know how much she just No, all we know is that her name was Valentina Visconti. And I think that's all we need to know about her. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and honestly, like there's not a whole ton about we don't know much about the diamond when it was in her possession. And actually, we don't even have the story of how the diamond passed from her into the hands of its next owner, but passed into the hands of its next owner, it did. And that is what brings us to our little bad boy, Charles the Bold.

Daniel 10:06

Ooh, I love a good honorific, and that's a good one. I love when they're ironic too.

Angela 10:12

So Charles the Bold is actually a very prominent figure in French history, and he is also the messiest. Like he is literally known as Charles the Bold, the scourge of France. Oh, yeah. Like, if there was yeah, if there was any man who had a curse coming to him from like a mile away, it was this guy. Like his Wikipedia is just pure chaos. Like he is. We're gonna learn a lot about Charles the Bold because he really just cannot be ignored.

Daniel 10:38

Um I'm glad it's a story of someone who deserved the curse, at least in this section. That's more fun.

Angela 10:44

It's delicious. So Charles was born into the noble house of Velois Burgundy, and he was the only surviving legitimate son of his father who was named Philip the Good. Um Did he name himself that? Yes, probably. Philip the Good, despite the name, was a deeply power-hungry, scheming little rat who viewed his son alternately as a pawn and as a threat. So, like, these their relationship was so toxic. So honestly, half of his problems were a curse, and the other half were like the most raging daddy issues a man could ever have. So I'm not entirely sure when Charles came into possession of the diamond, but he was running into bad luck pretty much right out of the gate. When Charles was six years old, he was married off as a child in a political marriage to a 10-year-old named Catherine, who was the daughter of the king of France. So this was all machinated by Philip the Good. So um this was a political marriage, they had like the same governess, they were just two kids who were married, you know.

Daniel 11:44

I know it was the it's I know it was all like arrangement and all that, but it's like what is that? Yeah, but it's gross. It's so funny, it's I mean so gross. Yeah.

Angela 11:51

Anyway, and Catherine, a few years later, came down with a coughing illness and at the age of 13 left Charles as a teenage widower. So at the young age of 13, he's already a widow, which is I would assume very traumatic for anyone in any scenario. So I don't know if the diamond was in his possession or in the family's possession at that time, but like things are already not great. Like he's it's not building a great foundation for this poor boy. Um, but after that, Charles does get a brief stretch of kind of like normalcy. Like he he dabbles in battles, he becomes a patron of the arts, he reads okay, listen to this sweet baby boy. He reads historical romances, but he also developed a deeply unhealthy obsession with Alexander the Great, as as these men often did. Yeah. And he decided, he decided that he too was destined for greatness because they both have fathers named Philip.

Daniel 12:46

Oh, we all are.

Angela 12:47

I know. I mean, like, sure, sure, babe. Anything you want to tell yourself, you have fun with that. Stop naming.

Daniel 12:53

That's why people with honorifics, that's like, you aren't that special, you aren't the anything, but I do love them. But that's like you need to get over yourself.

Angela 13:00

Oh my god, I know it makes me be like, what would my little honorific be? But I'm not even going down that path. Um, so eventually Charles gets married off again in another political marriage, this time to Isabella of Bourbon. And apparently Charles found out about this marriage the night before, and he was just like, okay, that's fine. But like that tracks because the last time he got married, he was six, and I'm sure his idea of being married to a woman is probably just like sharing juice boxes and playing hopscotch. Yeah, I mean But yeah, although Charles and Isabella they were a political match, but they did it's recorded in history that they had a love match, like they fell in love with each other, so something good happened to this man.

Daniel 13:40

Yeah.

Angela 13:40

But it turned out to be a little bit of a little bit too effective of a political marriage because Charles starts becoming close with Isabella's family and the Bourbons, who were very prolific in French aristocracy. And that alliance starts to threaten Philip's power. So Philip responds, you know, in the most healthy way possible, and he starts shutting Charles out of court effective entirely. So he starts taking his power away. And then to make matters worse, Philip invites the French Dauphine, the future King Louis XI to Burgundy, and he wines and dines him, he treats him like the son he never had.

Daniel 14:20

Oh, right in front of Charles.

Angela 14:22

Yeah. So he's taking Charles' power away, and then he's also like sliding in a new son who is the French Dauphine. So um, needless to say, Louis the Dauphine and Charles absolutely hated each other. And they had their own little like fighting match for daddy's love. And these little brats go back and forth, but for reasons known only to history and men, Charles made Louis the godfather of his only child. Like he had one child with Isabella, the woman he loves, and he makes its godfather.

Daniel 14:58

Despite godfathering.

Angela 15:00

I don't know. Like they were they were so unhealthy on so many levels. So who even knows? This might have even been something they thought was nice or something.

Daniel 15:07

Who knows?

Angela 15:07

Maybe they were trying, yeah.

Daniel 15:08

Maybe he was trying to mend fences, build bridges. Well, it didn't work. He thought I'm gonna make a bold move, it's in my name after all.

Angela 15:15

Yeah, he's like, Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna warm his little heart and surprise him. He probably gave him like a card or something.

Daniel 15:20

Yeah.

Angela 15:21

Um, well, no, it didn't work because no, no. It never does. Um, never, no. So over the next several years, Charles and Louis were blocked in like near constant conflict. Um, so this is what what Charles went through over these years. He survives a poisoning attempt by his valet. He takes a knife wound to the throat in battle, but he actually just like got up and kept going, which is kind of badass.

Daniel 15:45

Maybe the invincibility thing was real at first.

Angela 15:48

I know. I'm like, maybe the diamond was like, I'm gonna give you a chance. Yeah. I'm gonna let you, I'm gonna see what you can do. Like, it had a good time with Valentina Visconti, and maybe it was a little bit like, okay, Charles, okay.

Daniel 15:59

It wasn't quite on its tear yet.

Angela 16:01

No, it was it was just getting warmed up. So Charles is taking knives to the throat in battle. Um, but still there's just drama galore between him and Louis, between him and Philip the good. So um eventually, like all frustrated and ambitious men do, Charles masterminds a revolt against the king of France in 1465. Now, this is Louis's father, so it's like Louis and Philip are pals, and Charles is now masterminding revolts against Louis's father, and the revolt is known as the War of the Public Wheel, which sounds wheel stupid to me.

Daniel 16:39

Oh no, you did not.

Angela 16:41

I've had that one in my backpack.

Daniel 16:42

Appreciate and approve.

Angela 16:46

I sound real stupid too. Um no, but again, maybe the diamond was kind of like, you know, doing him a solid because he won the war of the public wheel. He won this revolt, and it gave him and a lot of the other like noblemen a lot more power. Like they they took their lands and power back from the king of France. So Charles is out, he's on a high, he's doing great, the diamond is rockin' and rollin'. Um, but that same year, Isabella, his second wife, dies of tuberculosis. Oh. Yeah. So how old were they at this point?

Daniel 17:22

Roughly.

Angela 17:22

Oh gosh, probably in their like twenties or thirties. Still young. I mean, everything is young. You die young in those days, no matter what.

Daniel 17:29

Rough life. I mean, even for nobility. I mean, they had life and they were awful and everything, but some parts of their life sucked too.

Angela 17:36

I know. Like, he was holding on to that diamond of invincibility probably as tight as he could, because times were tough. And like he was the nobility. Like, this is like the people living the good life when in in reality it was just like power struggles and untimely deaths and child marriages and widowing and all that crap. Well, two years later, Philip the Good then dies, which is probably the best thing.

Daniel 18:00

Was that a good thing at the time? Yeah.

Angela 18:02

Yeah. Because Charles finally becomes the Duke of Burgundy, and now that he's the Duke of Burgundy, he is ready to truly take on power because this dukedom, it was one of the most powerful dukedoms in France at that time, and all they were trying to do, all Philip was trying to do, all Charles will try to do is expand the land that they have power over and go to battle and fight and win. And I mean, they were just war goblins, basically, trying to expand the power of their dukedom. So Charles gets to work, he starts building alliances, he is going to battle, and he gets himself into yet another political marriage, which this is kind of when things start to unravel. So it's kind of like he kicks up his crazy a notch now that he's the Duke of Burgundy, and the diamond is like, no, no, no, hold on a minute, and it starts to really, yeah. So um, Philip has started the Burgundian Wars. It is 1476. He is basically out there just having lamb battles trying to gain ground, and he has pissed off the Swiss Confederacy, and now they are fighting it out at what was called the Battle of Grandson. And Grandson is a castle, by the way. Not a person. Not a grandson.

Daniel 19:21

I was like, who's the grandpa?

Angela 19:23

No, no, we yeah, we don't need another player in this mix. There's all all these men are just absolute nightmares. Um, so Charles's force initially retakes the castle from the Swiss. And now, I guess when we're thinking about where we're at in this Battle of Grandson, um, we're in Switzerland on the Lake Neuchatel, which is where the castle overlooks, and it's basically a long, narrow, marshy plain. So they're doing a little bit of like maneuvering of these armies around in this very narrow plane, and it's making it difficult because you've got these big medieval armies, and there's not very good communication. Like they're they're just kind of like sellswords and and men who, you know, kind of have gotten dragged into all these nobility, all these nobles' battles. And it's wet, it's boggy, it's gross. Um, so the two armies are maneuvering through this narrow terrain, they're trying to gain an advantage. And at one point, Charles's force sees the Swiss soldiers kneeling in prayer and they mistake it for surrender. So Charles is like trying to reposition, he's trying to get better like leverage in this narrow strait, and his troops are just like panicking and retreating, and he's literally just like, what the fuck? Like, get back to work. But he's just got like he's got a team full of chuds.

Daniel 20:39

Like, let's let's that is wild that they're they mistook prayer for surrender. Like, you think there would have been a way to be more obvious about what's going on from at that point.

Angela 20:50

Something tells me that Charles was probably pretty unsufferable to be around, so they probably were like, Oh, bye.

Daniel 20:55

You know, good excuse, let's just go with the flow.

Angela 21:00

Like they just wanted to go like do wine tasting in the French countryside.

Daniel 21:04

I mean, yeah, it's like, oh, or maybe, you know, go climb some Alps in Switzerland or something. Like, let's do something fun. Like, screw this guy, let's get out of here.

Angela 21:12

Yeah, well, they did screw this guy, they screwed him real big because Charles loses the Battle of Grandson, and they like abandoned the battlefield, they abandoned the camp. And so with that loss, the Swiss Confederacy raids Charles' personal tent. And guess what he kept in his personal tent? His collection. His little collection of priceless treasures. Um, including there was there were quite a few things in this tent that the Swiss took from him. So according to Wikipedia, Charles kind of had a habit of traveling to battle with an array of little symbolic artifacts meant to protect him and make him invincible. These kings are involved in the Oh, he was a duke. But yeah.

Daniel 21:53

Oh yeah. But uh royalty. Like leave that.

Angela 21:55

That's like the last thing I need to correct anybody on. Oh no, no, no. He was just a duke.

Daniel 22:01

He only slightly elevated himself among everyone else, like a psycho.

Angela 22:05

Through like bloodshed war and just general fuckery.

Daniel 22:09

Yeah.

Angela 22:09

Um, no, so he had carpets that were said to belong to Alexander the Great. He had a jewel known as the Three Brothers, and then he had, of course, the Sansi diamond, which was the Baldeflandres at that time. And all of it was looted by the Swiss.

Daniel 22:24

So I mean, those are the rules of war, right? I mean, that's why you don't bring your gems to war. That's why you don't bring your Charles.

Angela 22:32

But yeah, that's why you don't bring your 50 carat diamonds onto the battlefield, dude.

Daniel 22:37

Like what is that diamond gonna do for you in battle? Nothing. Well, unless it truly was invincibility, yeah.

Angela 22:43

And he was he had kind of a spotty record, but he had some wins under his belt.

Daniel 22:47

You know, yeah, maybe, maybe it made sense. You know, I guess I'll leave it to him to boldly make that decision.

Angela 22:53

If I had a 50 carat diamond in my possession, I would probably bring it to battle with me.

Daniel 22:58

I mean, if I had a 50 karat diamond, I'd definitely be fighting battles, so yeah.

Angela 23:05

Many, many, many battles of all types and all shapes and sizes. So anyway, after the battle of Grandson, believe it or not, everything accelerates. Like everything goes from just bad to worse. Oh yeah Charles continues fighting, though. He loses his next battle, the Battle of Marat. And by the time he reaches the Battle of Nancy, not related to Sansi, he is broke, he is scrambling for resources, and it is a few months later, so they are fighting not just in like the wet, marshy like battlefields, but it is snowy and frozen and gross now. So the army that didn't start out doing great is now completely demoralized. So once again, at the Battle of Nancy, things go awry on the battlefield and his troops are just like fucking out. Like they flee, they're done with him. And unfortunately for poor Charles, on the 5th of January 1477, at the Battle of Nancy, he fell from his horse into the river and he was killed by a Halberd blow to the head, which is a long spike with an axe at the end of it.

Daniel 24:07

So we got axe to the head?

Angela 24:10

Yes. Yikes. We got axe to the head. Um, so I mean the Sansi kind of did him it did what it came to do.

Daniel 24:19

And also at the Battle of Nancy, I feel like that's pressure. I know. I feel like there was anything because it wasn't even yeah, and it was like an echo of the future, and it was like Charles, I'm done with you. My destiny is I can see my destiny, and it was there.

Angela 24:35

Yes. It was like, babe, it broke up with him. It was like, babe, we've had a good time. You've done some real nasty shit.

Daniel 24:41

It's not me, it's you.

Angela 24:43

It's not me, it's you. And with that, a Hollbird spike spikes him through the head. So his poor this poor man. Do you want to hear what his Wikipedia says in the paragraph describing his army finding his body after the battle?

Daniel 24:59

I love an unhinged Wikipedia quote. Some of the funniest things I've ever read were from geniuses writing on Wikipedia.

Angela 25:05

They're oh yeah. Sometimes this one spared no prisoners. Poor Charles baby. Poor Charles. Uh okay. So the corpse of Charles the Bold was found two days after the battle when it was found lying on the icebound river with half of his head frozen. It took a group consisting of Charles's Roman valet, his Portuguese personal physician, his chaplain Olivier de la Marche, and two of his bastard brothers to identify the course through a missing tooth, an ingrown toenail, and long fingernails.

Daniel 25:39

Oh, they did it so dirty. They literally said they we identified his nasty ass crowd with his snaggle tooth and his unkempt nails.

Angela 25:51

Like literally, I don't give a shit if someone calls me para-shaped and talks about my weight. Do not talk about my snaggle tooth or my nasty ass toenails when you have on my body. Do not say my head was half frozen in a river. Like half frozen. It's been hundreds of years, and they still, like, literally, it was 1477, and this man still is just being like slayed day in and day out on his head was found half frozen.

Daniel 26:19

Yeah, that's that's just I agree. I I thought they did the Sandsy diamond a little rough by calling her pear-shaped, but Charles, Charles was done truly dirty.

Angela 26:28

Charles took the hit a bit harder. Yeah. So after poor Charles' untimely death, the it gets a little sketchy actually, because the Swiss had taken the diamond from the tent, and yet somehow it like backtracked its way into the hands of the royal family in Portugal. And it was then smuggled out of the country during a political crisis. So it sounds like it was still wheeling and dealing, having some fun, still fucking with people. They were finding out. And eventually it gets purchased by Nicholas Harleigh, a diplomat and financier who is more formally known as Nicholas Harleigh, the Lord of Sansi. And he is the first officially recorded owner. So that's how it became the Sansi Diamond. Because although honestly, like I feel like poor Charles, he should have had it should have been named for him because he really did get fucked over by it. And honestly, like Nicholas Harleigh, whatever. But what would they have called it?

Daniel 27:25

What what the bold diamond, maybe?

Angela 27:27

That's boring. Yeah.

Daniel 27:28

Um he was Burgundian.

Angela 27:30

Well, his less Yeah, the oh, the Burgundian diamond. I like that. Somewhere in the Louvre right now, the diamond from its slumber. Somewhere in the Louvre, the diamond is waking from its slumber saying, The Burgundian.

Daniel 27:44

I like that.

Angela 27:45

It's about to unleash itself.

Daniel 27:47

Let's not take let's not get the diamond's attention, please.

Angela 27:50

No. Um, and we'll talk a little bit more about that because, like I said, that was a bit of a spoiler. The diamond is currently at the Louvre, but we'll get back to that.

Daniel 27:57

Okay. So now it's fully in its Sancy era. It is realizing itself as its modern vision.

Angela 28:04

Yes, it is on one. Nicholas Harleigh, he owns the diamond, but he kind of like loans it out to people. So he lends the diamond to King Henry III of France because King Henry III of France was going bald and he wanted to use the diamond to essentially bedazzle a hat to cover his thinning hair.

Daniel 28:24

Let me take notes as an aging gentleman.

Angela 28:27

Yeah. Weren't you just showing me your receding hairline yesterday? Boy, have I got the thing for you. You're gonna get yourself a little cap. Then 50 cares worth, not a carat less. Um I know like how many years was this before the French Revolution that he was literally just like bedazzling his little balding cap with um 50 karat diamonds. Not a big deal. Um later, Henley Henry IV uses the diamond to col as collateral to finance an army. So we're back, we're in business, the Sansi is like, you know, probably rubbing its little rat hands together. Um and at one point in the age of Nicholas Harleigh's ownership, the most famous piece of Sansi lore occurs. So Nicholas Harleigh, like I said, he's kind of like lending the diamond around. He's probably making a lot of money off of this diamond. So honestly, I'm not entirely sure how he doesn't end up totally screwed. Like he does, but I digress. So he entrusts the diamond to a messenger, and along the way, the messenger runs into thieves, as probably often happens. So he doesn't come back, and Nicholas Harleigh sends out a search party after him, and eventually they do find his body. And let's not think too hard about how they got here, but the diamond was found in the messenger's stomach. Uh so he had swallowed it like a 50 karat diamond. He like he he took down that goose egg.

Daniel 29:50

Wow, and then he swallowed it and do we think that he did that as an in as a preliminary precaution in case of robbers, or as the robbery began, or he noticed something. Oh my god. I wonder. That's either way.

Angela 30:04

I never even thought of that because like when you think about it, that is that is not a small thing to swallow down.

Daniel 30:10

Yeah.

Angela 30:11

So I would assume he would have had to have been under duress because why else would you do that?

Daniel 30:15

I mean, also, I'm a messenger. I'm giving that diamond to the robbers and saying, take the diamond.

Angela 30:21

This poor kid. Okay.

Daniel 30:23

Although he probably back in the day, they'd probably kill him or whatever. I the awful people back then would have done something horrible if he then was like, I got robbed.

Angela 30:31

I don't know. It sounds like you pretty much were damned if you did and damned if you didn't. Yeah, the story kid Yeah, this kid got into the messenger business and I would assume would have understood some of the risk. But yeah, so he swallowed it in his last attempt to hide it before he was murdered. I'm I guess that's kind of the way the story is going. But Harleigh does eventually go bankrupt and he sells the gem. So he does succumb to the curse, but I feel like he really got off easy in this story because poor poor Chuck has his head half frozen. This messenger who literally just like was in the wrong place at the wrong time, swallows it, and then it's found in his stomach after he gets murdered.

Daniel 31:09

I don't like the idea of that messenger taking astray. Like all these all the rich people, it's like, yeah, be cursed. But the the case.

Angela 31:15

I know, and like somehow, somehow that is like the most prolific story in history. It's like, no, this poor kid, like you're right, he just took astray.

Daniel 31:24

Um I mean that's what that's but that's that's the danger of curses.

Angela 31:30

Yeah. That's like the most ridiculous. Well, just dangerous. They're dangerous.

Daniel 31:36

I mean, if we're being honest, that's the danger of curses.

Angela 31:40

If you're going about, what you gotta go about and do in order to get yourself a 50 karat diamond, you're gonna get you're gonna step into the mud sometimes. You gotta be able to slip and slide with it, babe.

Daniel 31:50

Yeah.

Angela 31:51

Okay.

Daniel 31:51

So Sansy himself, though he died.

Angela 31:55

No, this this little fuck gets off like nothing. So he goes broke, but whatever. Um, he dies, and the how did he die?

Daniel 32:06

Do we just like like just old age?

Angela 32:08

I don't even think it was worth reporting now that I think about it.

Daniel 32:12

He just goes bankrupt, it was just so unimaginative it wasn't even worth reporting.

Angela 32:16

I know. Why is it called seriously, stance? So after Harley, it passes to Charles the First of England, and then on to his son James II, who sells it under financial pressure. So I think right now she's in her like money era, she's really into bankrupting these dudes. Which is like I've had a taste of the thing.

Daniel 32:36

This is when modern banking started becoming like a thing and all that. I see it. She's evolving with the times.

Angela 32:41

She's evolving. She's had a taste of death. I mean, she's literally spent some time inside a victim's stomach, and she was a little bit like I can't top that.

Daniel 32:50

She's like, that was gross. Next century, I'm ruining people's finances.

Angela 32:54

Yeah. Yeah. She comes back and she's like rebranded. So she kind of is just like beboping around the aristocracy across multiple, you know, the fr English, the French. Um, she even became part of the French crown jewels and disappeared during the French Revolution, during the raid of the Royal Treasury, which she was not, and this is a little teaser, she's not the only cursed diamond that was part of the collection of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when the French Revolution occurred. There were other cursed diamonds in their possession.

Daniel 33:29

So on top of on top of, you know, treating the people of France poorly, they were really asking for it by having multiple.

Angela 33:35

Oh yeah, they doubled, they doubled down. They were doubling down. We'll talk about it later, though, in another episode. Yes, yes. Story, a story for another episode. So later it reappears with Russian nobility. So again, it's making she's making her rounds, she's world traveling, she's like, you know, snatching up money, killing very much.

Daniel 33:55

Give me your itinerary, Sansy.

Angela 33:57

I know. Like Sans is, you know, she's she's doing some stuff. Um, and then in 1906, she's like, I'm ready for one last ride. And the diamond is purchased by William Waldorf Astor. And tell me, Daniel, can you think of anything bad?

Daniel 34:17

So yeah.

Angela 34:18

Anything bad that happened to the Astor family in the 1900s, early 1900s. Later, he gets around the year. He yeah, so William Waldorf Astor's son, John Jacob Astor, was on the Titanic.

Daniel 34:29

Yes.

Angela 34:29

But the Astor still held the diamond in their possession until 1976. So they clearly were like, whatever, she can do what she wants. She can take one of our men and she can keep on trying. So um, I don't think there's no nothing is recorded of them saying anything about it. But they had it in their possession until 1976, and then they sold it to the Louvre for one million dollars. And it still resides there today in the Apollo room, lying in wait, plotting, scheming.

Daniel 34:55

What's a million dollars in 1976?

Angela 34:57

I know, like I thought that seemed a little off because I think its valuation is at about six million dollars.

Daniel 35:02

Yeah, well, yeah, they say one million in 1976 is approximately 5.7 million in 2026. So yeah.

Angela 35:08

Okay, so that tracks. Now, an extra layer to this, for me at least, is that I have been to the Louvre. I have been to the Apollo room, and I don't specifically remember seeing the Sansi, but it's very, very likely that she and I have met. Ooh. I know. I know. I need to go back to Paris now and officially.

Daniel 35:28

You see any financial ruin lately?

Angela 35:31

No, but stomach feeling okay. I wouldn't I wouldn't be sad if my head ended up frozen in a river.

Daniel 35:37

Let's hope half your head isn't frozen, please.

Angela 35:40

I've been growing out my toenails extra long, just thinking.

Daniel 35:43

But that's always been the case, Angela.

Angela 35:46

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um please, Daniel, please, please come and um identify me in some just putrid orange.

Daniel 35:59

Hopefully, I never am tasked with identifying your body because I'll have to walk about her. I'll have to walk up to the to the corner and be like, excuse me, can you remove remove the shoes and socks, please? This is how this is how we'll do this.

Angela 36:12

Ew, ew, okay. Well, spare me. Spare me. So I don't know. I think at the end of the day, we're coming down to a couple things. Really what our question is here. Were all of these people cursed? Was the diamond cursing them, or were they just being buckwild and dumb? Like, was it a consolidation of like just the perfect confluence of I have way too much money, I have way too much power, I am so fucked up in many, many ways, and the diamond was just there snickering to itself, or do you think old sands was up to some hoodwinks?

Daniel 36:52

To me, it's sort of like it's the story about all these powerful people in in culture and society, and even with all their riches and all their power, they couldn't stop these bad things from happening to them. They're still they're still widowed multiple times by their twenties and thirties. They're get axed in the head, they you know, they have illnesses, they they lose their fortune, they die in they die in icy uh boat, you know, a sinking boat in the North Atlantic. It's nothing they could do still protect them from the realities of the world and even riches. So it's interesting for people to turn those riches into the cause itself. And it makes sense.

Angela 37:35

Did you hear that elites? You can't escape, you can't have fucked.

Daniel 37:39

I mean, I think we're seeing it nowadays. Like people would love the idea if like cryptocurrency or like NFTs cursed the rich people buying these stupid things.

Angela 37:49

I think that would be like I mean no, like we're probably gonna have some episodes about some of the things. Exactly.

Daniel 37:55

So I spoilers. Like, I'm not saying it's a jealousy thing, but it's sort of like like kind of what you said, a fuck around and find out. You fuck around and find out you had too much money, it bit you in the ass. That money itself cursed you.

Angela 38:07

What I am hearing is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, they're probably cursed, but it is still really more in the realm of like cursed-ish. It's proximity, it's the situations you put yourself in when you get into that arena of like money, power, whatever. Okay.

Daniel 38:24

Exactly, exactly.

Angela 38:25

Okay, cursed-ish.

Daniel 38:26

Yeah, so maybe cursed, maybe not.

Angela 38:28

Maybe not. Alright, well, what do we have coming up on our next episode, Daniel?

Daniel 38:33

Um, next week we are going to talk about a curse of someone who has one of the best nights of their life. They win an Oscar, and you would expect that to lead to wonderful career prospects, and then something happens, and their careers kind of fall apart, and it's uh there's a lot of interesting cases. So we're gonna talk about the Oscar curse.

Angela 38:52

Alright, well, thank you everyone. I hope you enjoyed our episode, and we'll see you next week. Cursed is an Ish Media production. It explores stories of alleged curses, historical mysteries, and supernatural claims. While we do investigate the history and the evidence behind these stories, ultimately you should decide for yourself what to believe. If you have questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share, send us a hex at uh oh at cursedish.com. That's uh oh you h all one word at cursdish all one word dot com.