The Legendary "Florentine Diamond" and Fifteen Other Habsburg Jewels Thought Lost Were Kept in a Bank Vault in Canada

As it turns out, during the Second World War Empress Zita, widow of the last Austrian emperor, Charles I, took the family jewels out to Quebec, where she found refuge with her children. Only two members of the family knew where the treasures were, and the secret was to be kept until the centenary of the emperor's death, 1 April 2022.

In a small brown suitcase, wrapped in paper, lay a diamond-studded Order of the Golden Fleece, a brooch set with gems in the Hungarian colours, which had belonged to Empress Sisi, and the celebrated 137-carat Florentine Yellow Diamond, once the property of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, which passed through the Medici into the Viennese imperial treasury.

Karl von Habsburg announced that the family plans to display the jewels in one of Canada's museums, in gratitude to the country where his grandmother found refuge.

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

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The Legendary "Florentine Diamond" and Fifteen Other Habsburg Jewels Thought Lost Were Kept in a Bank Vault in Canada

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

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