Christie’s

Christie’s is the auction house and exhibition venue for a decisive episode in Régis’s long investigation of the Founder’s cameo. Its private display of historic engraved stones gives him the first substantial evidence that the family heirloom belonged to a pair associated with the Regent’s collection. The discovery clarifies the object’s European provenance, while Régis’s wary encounter with Victor Bourdieu makes Christie’s a point where research and the later conspiracy begin to intersect.

The Invitation and the Exhibition

While speaking with Régis, Victor Bourdieu mentions that Christie’s will hold an auction of antique jewelry in Paris the following day. Much of the sale, he says, comes from royal collections and prominent families. Alongside it, Christie’s has arranged an exhibition of old engraved stones, chiefly Baroque pieces that remain in private collections. The event has not been publicly advertised and is reserved for a selected clientele, largely European aristocrats. Bourdieu says he has access and invites Régis to accompany him; Régis accepts, inwardly excited by the prospect that the visit may set something important in motion.

Christie’s assembled the exhibition with contributions from private collections and museums in France and elsewhere in Europe. Its display cases held numerous objects, while photographs documented engraved stones once owned by aristocrats but subsequently lost from view. This combination matters to Régis’s inquiry: he can compare not only physical works on display but also images and historical records of cameos whose whereabouts are unknown. The account does not say that the Founder’s cameo itself was exhibited or offered for sale. Instead, the exhibition presents an image and an old engraving that allow Régis to identify a likely counterpart to the Canadian family object.

A Pair Identified

As Régis scans the photographs, he recognizes one cameo as closely resembling his grandfather’s stone. Beside it, an old engraving depicts the cameo said to have disappeared—and, without the scratch that marks the family object, it is the very jewel Régis remembers examining after it was exhumed from the Founder’s grave. Seeing the image revives those earlier memories and turns a longstanding hypothesis into a stronger provenance clue.

The exhibition’s description supplies concrete grounds for the comparison. The two cameos show the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, standing opposite one another; each holds a horse by the bridle and carries a spear, and each wears an oval cap topped by a star. The catalogue identifies the stone as five-layer onyx with a dark upper layer. It also states that the pair once belonged to the Regent’s collection and became separated after the French Revolution. One remained in the private collection of an unnamed family of the old French aristocracy; the missing Castor cameo was presumed lost, perhaps amid the revolutionary upheaval. Christie’s materials do not explain how the other stone reached the Founder, so the display answers one question while leaving the central gap in the family’s account unresolved.

Régis’s Caution and Bourdieu’s Interest

Régis does not immediately tell Bourdieu the family’s name. When Bourdieu presses him to alert the exhibition organizers to the possibility that the Canadian cameo is the missing piece, Régis replies that he cannot identify the family without first speaking to them. He also emphasizes that he is not yet certain what he has seen or whether his recollection of the Canadian stone is reliable. His restraint reflects the limits of the evidence: the exhibition supports a striking identification, but it does not prove the heirloom’s full chain of ownership or establish that it is authentic.

The written account that Loïc later reads indicates that Régis notices Bourdieu’s keen, almost acquisitive interest and regrets having said too much. Before leaving, however, Régis takes a photograph of the Pollux cameo, a record Loïc later finds among his papers. Bourdieu soon excuses himself, citing an appointment. In an entry dated May 10, 1996, Régis describes him as too quick in business and too insistent about the stone, and resolves to remain on guard. The exhibition thus leaves Régis with both a major research lead and a new reason for suspicion; Christie’s is the setting, not evidence of wrongdoing by the institution.

A Point in the Later Conspiracy

Loïc’s later reconstruction gives the Paris visit consequences beyond Régis’s immediate discovery. From the notes left by Régis and his own deductions, Loïc concludes that Bourdieu passed word to an old regional acquaintance, Charles de C..., a vineyard owner and long-standing accomplice. Loïc connects that disclosure to the plot that culminated in the Founder’s cameo disappearing on September 11, 2001. Régis himself never learned Charles de C...’s name, and the narrative presents Loïc’s account as a later reconstruction rather than information established during the Christie’s visit.

The organization’s role is therefore specific but consequential: Christie’s supplies a setting in which objects, photographs, and catalogue history let Régis recognize the paired cameos, while the same encounter brings his discovery to Bourdieu’s attention. The exhibition establishes that the family stone resembles a lost Castor from a documented pair; it does not settle whether the Founder possessed the original or how it crossed the Atlantic. That distinction between visual identification and proven provenance preserves the mystery even as the investigation advances.