Editor’s Note
This article details a brazen daylight heist at a major Paris museum, where priceless royal jewels were targeted. The incident raises immediate questions about security protocols at cultural institutions. We will continue to follow this developing story.
On October 19, 2025, shortly after the famous Parisian museum opened to the public, a spectacular robbery took place in the Apollo Gallery, which houses the priceless jewels that belonged to French sovereigns. In their escape, the criminals dropped the Empress Eugénie’s crown, composed of 1354 diamonds and 56 emeralds.
It was a “Lupin”-style express heist, a scenario worthy of a Netflix series. And it happened at the heart of one of France’s jewels. On October 19, 2025, as the sun rose over the capital, the Louvre, which had just opened its doors to the public, was the target of a major robbery whose impact is expected to be worldwide. It was Rachida Dati, the Minister of Culture herself, who announced this regrettable attack on the famous Parisian museum, which welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024.
It was around 9:30 a.m. when several hooded criminals, arriving on powerful Tmax scooters, entered the Apollo Gallery on the first floor after using a service elevator and forcing open a window. There, they seized several jewels displayed in two showcases. Beyond their market value, these have “an invaluable heritage and historical value,” the Minister of Culture stated. They are indeed eight jewels belonging notably to the jewelry collection of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie.
On Sunday evening, the Ministry of Culture revealed the list of stolen treasures after several hours of inventory. It notably includes: the diadem from the parure of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, the necklace from the sapphire parure of the same queens, a matching pair of earrings, the emerald necklace from Marie-Louise’s parure, the corresponding pair of emerald earrings, the so-called “reliquary brooch,” Empress Eugénie’s diadem, and Empress Eugénie’s large corsage bow.
More broadly, the Apollo Gallery, divided into three parts, brings together stones and parures from the collections of French sovereigns, from Francis I to Napoleon III. By committing this robbery in this precise location, the criminals targeted the showcase of the Crown Jewels, one of the most sensitive wings of the Louvre Museum. The thieves, numbering three or four, then fled on their two-wheelers, dropping a unique, extremely high-value imperial jewel: the crown of Empress Eugénie, found damaged below.
Standing 13 centimeters high, this jewel is adorned with 1354 diamonds, 1136 rose-cut diamonds, and 56 emeralds. It was Napoleon III, in 1855, who asked the jeweler Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier to create this crown for the Paris World’s Fair to impress the whole world. “The Empress’s crown, now at the Louvre Museum, reveals the splendor of the Second Empire as well as the virtuosity of the jewelers of that era,” explains the Louvre on its website.
An investigation has been opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for organized theft to find the perpetrators. Let’s hope these robbers have less ingenuity to escape the police than the character Arsène Lupin.
