DRAMA OF REVOLUTION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 11

DRAMA OF REVOLUTION

A former captain of - the Austrian Imperial \army,'; J. von : Korwin,V ^*has been sentenced to a year's imprisonment in connection with the mysterioiis "disappearance of • a- faihotis-* and ihistorical 1 jewel, the so-called • Hortense diadem. The trial was a sensation. in Vienna, not only because the jewel -itself was of great historical interest and of great value, but because the people involved were famous. The owner of the jewel was the late Arcjiduke Leopold Salvator, who left Austria. after the 1918 collapse, and settled in Spain. One of the people who tried to buy it . was the onee famous banker, Sigismund Bosel, while tho cliief witness was the Arclidueliess Blanca, the widow of the late Arcbduke Leopold Salvator, whose diary, writ-ten in French, was produced ih courfc. From the evidence . o.f the Archduchess Blanea, it appeared that her family never intended to sell the jewel. The diadem was a prese'nt of Napoleon I. to his step-daughter, Hortense Beauharnias (the daughter of Jo.sephine

Beauharnais, Napoleon's first" wife) who' later on married Louis Bona-parfce, King of the Netherlands. Her third son wa# Napoleon III., ' Emperor of France.. From Queen Hortense's possession ifch# jewel passed into the hands of the Tuscany branch of the Ilapsburgs. The evidence of the witnesses showed that when the Austrian Revolution broke out, the Archduchess Blanea became frightened, because she liad read a book about the Frenelx Revolution and had come to the conclusion that "If there is a revolution, we must fiy the country." Tlxe family tlxerefore • tried to send the jewel out of the country, if possible, to Spain. In 1920 Capt, Korwiu voluuteered to do so, and the Arcbduke gave him a letter, on the basis of which his trusted man ixi Vienua, who kept the diadem in hiding, hauded over the jewel. Ixi his diary the Archduk© said that he merely asked Korwin to. smuggle the jewel into .Spain, whil# Korwin said that he was told to dis- . pose of it. He tlxerefore pawned it im a shop at Dorotheum. It-then disapi peared.