Here at Memories France we are all abuzz with the brazen heist of priceless objects kept in the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery. You’ve heard too about the crown jewels absconded with by persons unknown; the papers are full of details that might sound straight out of a Hollywood movie or an Arsène Lupin tale.

Let us tell you about it, as this is essentially one of our workplaces: we’re in and out of the Louvre halls everyday telling you all about its inestimable treasures. 

But while the jewels themselves are in themselves breathtaking, Memories believes that what gives these assemblages of precious gems life and meaning are the tales they tell of those they were destined to adorn, in itself a nutshell history of France.

The Louvre Heist 2025: Setting and Key Royals

It starts with the Louvre itself, a medieval fortress that dashing King Francis I turned into a palace worthy of the name. This king established the crown jewels as a collection in 1532, and they were then handed down from reign to reign. When revolutionaries toppled the crown in 1792, the royal collections were claimed by the new state as belonging to the people, the République Française. They were placed in the care of the Louvre, now a museum as well as a fortress, a place to keep them out of harm’s way in the 17th century Apollo Gallery: 60 meters of gilded stucco and ceiling murals started by Charles LeBrun and finished by Eugène Delacroix in the 19th century. Stunning in its majesty and opulence, the Apollo Gallery served as model for Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors to come. 

So to understand the depth and breadth of what was stolen, it’s not enough to list auction house estimates or carats or numbers of precious stones, although we’ll get to that, too. To really comprehend it, we have to get to know the cast of characters, against the tumultuous backdrop of power grabs across France’s stormy 19th Century.

It starts at the dawn of that era. After the Revolution, Corsican general Napoleon becomes Emperor of France in 1804. His relationship with divorcée Joséphine is the stuff of novels, where love clashed with statecraft. On top of this, the Bonaparte family formally destested Joséphine as a divorcée with two kids already in tow, one of whom was the lovely 16 year old Hortense. In a vain attempt to conciliate the Corsican clan, of course Hortense took one for the team and Napoleon married her off to his brother, a hypocondriac with a persecution complex and untreated venereal disease. When he becomes King of Holland, Hortense in turn became its queen. She’ll give birth to two sons with her husband, whom the future will remember as Napoléon II and Napoléon III.

It says much for her that after the Emperor’s divorce from her mother and his later remarriage, Hortense became one of the few that the new Empress allowed into her closest circle of friends. This was Marie-Louise, of Austria.

The Stolen Crown Jewels: Napoleon, Marie Amélie, and Eugénie

Two of the pieces of jewelry taken were a wedding gift from Napoleon I Bonaparte to this second wife, Marie-Louise. 

1. A necklace counting 32 emeralds and 1138 diamonds.

2. A matching pair of 1810 emerald earrings by jeweler François Régnault-Nitot.

Further three came from the collections of The Queen Hortense and the last reigning  “Queen of the French ” Marie Amélie.

Who was Marie Amélie? First, a switch around of scenery which takes place post-restoration of the monarchy in 1814. Around comes another revolution, that of July 1830 (this is the one from Les Misérables) and produces the “Citizen King” Louis Philippe and his wife Marie Amélie, niece to Marie-Antoinette. Marie-Amélie thought her husband far too honest to reign, and when he accepted the crown she turned out to the public with swollen red eyes from weeping. 

From the collections belonging then to Hortense and Marie Amélie were stolen:

3. A sapphire and diamond diadem

4. 8 saphires and 631 diamonds in a necklace 

5. One matching earring from the matching the saphire necklace 

Finally in 1851 Louis-Napoléon --  Hortense’s younger son, and thus Napoléon I’s nephew – seized power as Napoléon III and reigned until 1870 and the Franco Prussian war. For visitors to Paris, he is most famous for having rehauled the whole urban fabric of the old medieval city into the broad tree-lined boulevards so iconic of today’s capital.  We call his era the Second Empire, after his uncle’s First Empire. 

He married Eugénie of Montijo and the other jewels are hers:

6.  The 1852 Diadem de l’Impératrice Eugénie encrusted with 1 998 diamonds and 212 pearls – 17 of them being huge pear forms.

7.  Then there was a 2 438 diamond studded 1855 François Kramer corsage bow.

8. The list ends with what is called the “reliquary brooch”: an 1855 creation assembled by Paul-Alfred Bapst, made up of  two diamonds given to Louis XIV by his minister Mazarin, with the large middle diamond being the fourth button of that king’s doublet before it was turned into an earring for Marie-Antoinette. In other words, as Julien Lacaze -- President of Sites & Monuments--  tweeted, a miniature summary of the history of France

The One That Survived: Priceless Gems Left Behind

While the villains made off with Empress Eugénie’s over the top crown of 1 354 diamonds and 56 emeralds between a round of golden eagles (a Napoleonic thing), the raptors must have had their say about the matter, for the criminals dropped it. It suffered, but, like France, survived.

Other survivors include similar crown jewels in the same case, such as pearl and diamond earrings that belonged to Joséphine. A third display case came out entirely unscathed, which contained the crown jewels dating from 1530 to 1789! Phew!

We can breathe another sigh of relief that the thieves also left aside the diamond considered the most beautiful in all France and well beyond, known as The Regent, with its 140,64 carats, valued by Sotheby’s at more than US$60m (£45m).  The brilliant had once been part of the crown right next to it, worn by the heads of Louis XV and Louis XVI (as one Memories guide expresses it, the “Fun King” and the “Done King”) who came after the Sun King.

Famous Louvre Thefts: History of Art Heists

This is not the first spectacular theft from the world’s premiere museum.  In 1998, someone walked out with a Corot canvas which was never seen again.

Before that, of course, were the Nazi pillages, which will be in a new blog entry coming soon.

Then there is the Mona Lisa. While the star of the Louvre’s catwalk - soon to be given her own bespoke entry - is now safely encased in bullet proof glass, Lady Lisa was kidnapped in 1911 by an Italian national. Out of patriotic pride (he mistakenly believed that Napoleon had plundered it when in fact it came to France in Leonardo’s own suitcases), Vincenzo Peruggia carried her out under a worker’s smock and, stored her in his Paris apartment before bringing her back to her Florentine origins. Expecting to be fêted by his countrymen and rewarded, he contacted a gallery owner. The painting was authenticated, the police were alerted, and that was it for Signore Peruggia.

Explore Louvre History and French Royal Treasures on Our Tours

• If you want to hear more of the storied past of the Louvre museum as well as the invaluable collections it holds, come with us on one of our guided tours, we’d love to have you!

• For more on the Emperor’s meteoric rise to power and his comebacks, including his tempestuous romance with Joséphine, we have a great tour of the magnificent Invalides including Napoleon's spectacular tomb.

• To explore the world that gave us the earliest of these jewels, we have several Versailles Tours that are just the thing – choose the one that is perfect for you!

The heist may have set tongues wagging and filled headlines, but the real magic of the Louvre’s crown jewels isn’t just in the sparkle of their diamonds and emeralds. It’s in the stories they tell—the intrigues of emperors, the dramas of empresses, the triumphs and heartbreaks of queens, and the stormy, ever-changing history of France itself. Each necklace, diadem, and earring is a little time capsule, a glittering chronicle of ambition, love, and legacy stretching across centuries.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our blog! We are a small Paris-based tour company that prioritises a boutique personal experience where we can share our passion for our heritage and community with every individual that joins us. If you'd like to take a tour then head over to our website for an unforgettable trip to the city of lights. Also, check out our social media @memories.france for everything you could need to know for coming to Paris: from how to use the metro to coffee shops closest to each major monument, there is something for everyone!

Angelissa, Siobhan & the Memories France Family

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