Louvre heist: the turbulent history of the stolen royal jewels

It sounds like the plot of a heist movie. On October 19, priceless items of jewellery and royal regalia were stolen, in broad daylight and in a matter of minutes, from the Louvre's gilded Gallery of Apollo in Paris. The theft of these items from one of the world's most famous museums, however, is merely the latest instalment in the chequered history of the crown jewels of France.

- BY LAURA O'BRIEN Associate Professor in Modern European History, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Louvre

In many other countries, the term "crown jewels" is commonly understood as referring to regalia in particular, the items used as part of the coronation ceremony for a monarch. In France, however, the crown jewels - or, to give them their French title, les joyaux de la Couronne de la France - is a more expansive term. It includes royal regalia, items of jewellery and precious stones.

The collection originated in the 16th century, when Francis I decreed that a set of jewels in his possession would become part of the inheritance of his successors. Eight items were stolen, including the reliquary brooch, diadem and large corsage-bow broach, and the 1855 crown of the Empress Eugénie, wife of Emperor Napoleon III.

The thieves also took an emerald necklace and earrings made for Empress Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon I, and a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to Queen Marie Amélie, wife of King Louis-Philippe.

Few items of royal jewellery and regalia survived the French Revolution in 1789. For centuries, the chapter of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, just outside Paris, had been the custodians of the coronation regalia as well as overseeing the preferred burial place of most French monarchs.

Most of the various crowns made for French kings since the Middle Ages were lost or destroyed in revolutionary attacks on the abbey, such as the Crown of Charlemagne and the 13th-century crown of Saint Louis. Both were melted down between 1793 and 1794.