Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** A brazen heist at the Louvre saw thieves disguised as construction workers steal priceless Napoleonic jewelry. The stolen pieces, of immense historical value, are now the focus of a recovery pledge from President Macron.
The Paris museum said the jewelry belonged to Napoleon and his wife.
PARIS and LONDON — Several people disguised as construction workers broke into the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday, cracking open display cases and stealing jewelry that once belonged to Emperor Napoleon and his wife, officials said.
At least nine pieces of jewelry of “inestimable heritage and historical value” — including crowns, necklaces, earrings and brooches — were taken in the brazen heist before the thieves made their getaway on motorcycles, two ministers said.
Macron vowed in a social media post that the stolen jewelry will be recovered.
“They deployed the freight elevator, securing the surroundings with construction cones, before accessing the second floor, in the Apollo gallery, by breaking the window with an angle grinder,” according to the police statement. “Inside, they then smashed two display cases, ‘Napoleon jewels’ and ‘French crown jewels,’ using the angle grinder and stole numerous pieces of high-value jewelry.”
Among the jewelry stolen from the Louvre museum, Oct. 19, 2025, is this diadem, or crown, from the collection of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense.
Police say they’re investigating a video obtained by BFMTV, a French news broadcast television and radio network, which they believe shows one of the suspects appearing to try to access one of the jewelry cases.
Among the jewelry stolen from the Louvre museum, Oct. 19, 2025, is this necklace from the sapphire collection of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense. (Musée du Louvre / Stéphane Maréchalle)
Among the jewelry stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris, October 19, 2025, is this pair from the sapphire collection of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense.
The thieves either dropped or abandoned two pieces of jewelry as they exited the museum, including one of Empress Eugénie’s crowns, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, which said it is investigating the case as an aggravated theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy to commit a crime.
Nathalie Abbou Vidal has spent her life surrounded by jewels that have lived through revolutions, crowned emperors and survived wars. As one of France’s leading jewelry historians, she teaches at the prestigious Haute Ecole de Joaillerie and advises major auction houses and the French courts.
“Investigations have begun, and a precise list of the stolen items is underway,” the museum said in a statement.
The French Ministry of Culture later on Sunday released a list of eight items that they said had been stolen, which included two brooches, two diadems, two necklaces and two pairs of earrings.
The pair of emerald earrings from Marie-Louise’s collection
Musée du Louvre / Jean-Gilles Berizzi
Four thieves pulled off the apparently well-planned heist, according to authorities.
The theft took place around 9:30 a.m. local time on Sunday, just before the museum was set to open to the public, the Paris Police Prefecture said in a statement.
The team of thieves drove up to the side of the museum in what police described as a “mobile freight elevator” equipped with a metal ladder on the back that was extended up to a window, according to the Paris police.
Two of the thieves arrived at the museum in the mobile freight elevator, one wearing a yellow vest and the other an orange vest, according to police. Two accomplices arrived at the museum at the same time on what police described as “T-max vehicles” or sports motorbikes.
“The staff on site, upon seeing what was happening, took to safety,” according to the police statement. “An alarm was triggered at 9:37 a.m. The perpetrators exited through the window by going back down the freight elevator before fleeing on the two motorbikes at 9:38 a.m.”
The brooch known as the reliquary brooch.
Musée du Louvre / Stéphane Maréchalle
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office said the perpetrators tried and failed to set fire to the mobile freight elevator they used in the heist before they fled the scene.