The Regent or Pitt, an antique-cut diamond of 136 ¾ carats, is of Indian origin and reportedly was found around 1700 by a slave in the Parteal Mines, 20 miles from Masulipatan, (or in one of the pits of the Golconda Fields).

According to legend, the slave injured himself at the loins and hid the stone under the dressing. As the sale of such a precious object was near impossible for a serf, he confided in a seaman, promising him the jewel if he procured him freedom. The seaman lured him aboard his ship, took the stone from him and threw him overboard. He sold the diamond for 1000 pounds sterling to the English governor of the fort near St. George, by the name of Pitt, whose name the diamond received. Then the murderer and thief went through the money and hanged himself.

The Duke of Orleans, then regent of France for Louis XV and second namer ("Regent"), bought it in 1717 for 3,375,000 francs from Pitt.Its faceting took two years. During the cutting operation the diamond lost over 60% of its original weight. The fragments produced during the fashioning were subsequently sold. During the ransacking of the Tuileries in 1792 the Regent, along with all crown jewels, disappeared. Later it mysteriously returned.

The republic pawned it in Berlin with a merchant by the name of Treskow. Finally it adorned the hilt pommel of emperor Napoleon I. At the auction of the French crown jewels in 1886 it was not re-auctioned on account of its historic value (it had been appraised at 6,000,000 Francs) and can now be admired at the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre Museum.