PARIS — If jewels could only speak, what stories they could tell!

The peacock, a turban brooch with a golden beak and waves of diamond plumes, would reveal its sensual life. It left Paris with an Indian maharajah, moved on to the prince’s Spanish lady love, returned to the harem of his wives, had a later sojourn in America — and so much more, too indiscreet to tell.

And that is the tale of just one exceptional jewel that in 1905 left the historic store of Mellerio dits Meller on the Rue de la Paix....