What Was Stolen From The Louvre And What Has Happened To The Jewels? | Heist Of The Century

It's already being called the heist of the century. On Sunday the 19th of October 2025, several priceless items belonging to the French Crown Jewels collection were stolen in a daring daylight robbery from the Louvre Museum in Paris. In this video from History Calling I'll tell you what we know so far and discuss the history behind the items stolen, plus what their loss means for France and what I think has likely happened to them based on thefts from other high profile people and locations including the British Museum, Kim Kardashian, the Lost Amber Room and the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels from Dublin Castle. A quick disclaimer before we start. This is a bonus video that I've put together much faster than I usually work so apologies for there not being as many changeovers in images on screen as normal. If you're new here I usually rotate the images and footage more often than you're about to see so please don't judge my whole channel on this video. Also I know some people say Louvre, some people say Louvre. I say Louvre because that's what I hear native French speakers saying and I did double check French news reports on France24's channel about this story right before I started recording so please don't complain at me in the comments if you say Louvre Okay with all of that in mind, let's dig in. As you've no doubt seen on the news, at 9.30am local time on Sunday the 19th of October 2025, four men dressed as construction workers pulled up at the Louvre's zen facing outer wall and used a truck with an extendable ladder to access the window of the museum's stunning Apollo Gallery from the street. Two of them used an angle grinder to breach the window and gain access to the building which had just opened to the public for the day. The robbery seems to have been very well timed as I assume that any overnight security systems which exist had just been turned off to allow for the tourists to explore the museum. Yet because it had just opened and it takes time for tourists to get from the main entrance hall to the Apollo Gallery, if you've never been there the Louvre is huge and quite the maze, the gallery was still largely empty. Had it been at any other time during opening as my own images from my visit there show, it would have been packed with people. Still there were some witnesses. A gallery attendant was present and has been quoted in the news as saying that she suddenly heard a loud metallic noise. She said two frightened tourists ran towards her and she saw the criminals with what looked like a chainsaw in the gallery, then shouted to her colleagues to run and that they were being robbed. The alarm was raised, they sealed the room to protect the other galleries and evacuated the tourists. The attendant also reflected that, for us it was unbelievable the display cases could have been broken, never for a moment did we think there was such a risk, nobody can be prepared for that. What she had seen was that with cutting equipment the men had raided two glass cases and stolen nine items belonging to what was left of the collection of the French Crown Jewels. The whole heist took just seven minutes, it appears that they knew exactly what they were going for and only one item has been recovered, having apparently been dropped as the robbers made their escape on motorbikes outside the building. As I've said, the museum's alarms were raised, however there wasn't time to stop the robbery. A security guard reported arriving at the scene where the gang's lorry had been parked and smelling petrol, saying, I ran outside through the pyramid, meaning the famous glass pyramid in the centre of the Louvre's courtyard and across the courtyard. I got there at the very moment the criminals got away by scooter. Because the gang had ruptured the vehicle's fuel tank and a blowtorch was found nearby, he added that, it's clear they intended to set fire to their vehicle. I genuinely think we thwarted their plan because they would never have left behind so much evidence. So the robbery wasn't perfect but it was still horrifyingly effective and clearly well planned out. The items taken date to France's first and second empires and for those of you not familiar with these terms, the first French empire refers to the period between 1804 and 1814 and a few months in 1815 when France was ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte. I'll leave my video all about his life linked below for you. His wives were first Empress Josephine, who he divorced, and secondly Empress Marie-Louise of Austria. Napoleon Bonaparte also made his relations kings and queens of other countries and territories under French control and his stepdaughter through Josephine, who was named Hortense, married his brother Louis and became Queen Consort of Holland. The second French empire refers to the period between 1852 and 1870 when France was ruled by Emperor Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of the original Napoleon Bonaparte. He was known as Napoleon III and was married to Empress Eugenie from 1853 onwards. The other name you'll need to know for this video is Queen Marie-Amélie. In between the first and second empires, France's monarchy was restored and Queen Marie-Amélie was the wife of King Louis-Philippe The items stolen have now been added to Interpol's Stolen Works of Art database and the following is a list of them, along with some historical background information on each and you'll hear me referring to them in the past tense here for reasons which I'll explain after I've gone through the list. First we have Empress Eugenie's diamond bow brooch, which dates to the Created in Paris between 1855 and 1864, this brooch contained 2,438 brilliant cut and 196 rose-cut diamonds set in gold-lined silver. Originally designed by François Cramer, official jeweler to Empress Eugenie, this was created for the Exposition Universelle of 1855, which was a huge world fair held on the famous Champs-Élysées in November of that year, and it was initially a girdle. It was then adapted in 1864 at Eugenie's request and turned into the fringe brooch you see here. Next we have the diadem of Empress Eugenie. This was made in Paris in 1853 and contained 212 pearls and 1,998 diamonds set in gold-lined silver. It was created by the jeweler Alexandre-Gabriel Le Monner, be nice about my French pronunciation, names are tricky, and used pearls and diamonds from the French crown collection. This is what the information card beneath the display case said about it when I visited the museum. These pearls and diamonds come from an ensemble created by the jeweler François-Régnault Niteau for Empress Marie-Louise and already redesigned by the Maison Batz for the Duchess Jean Goulaim in 1819-1820. Next we come to an emerald necklace for Marie-Louise's parure, which means a set of matching jewels, and yes those rolled R's are very difficult for me in French, along with a set of her emerald earrings. They were created in Paris in 1810. The necklace had 32 emeralds, 10 of them teardrops, and 1,138 diamonds set in gold and silver. The earrings consisted of 6 emeralds and 108 diamonds also set in gold and silver. Together they were part of a set which included an emerald diadem and comb which Napoleon I gave to his second wife Marie-Louise as a wedding gift. When the by then former Empress died in 1847, the set went to the Habsburgs who were then ruling Tuscany in Italy. Apologies for the occasionally slightly blurry image by the way, I had to photograph the jewels in their glass cases and unlike the robbers I was not prepared to break into them to get better access, so the glass caused a little bit of blurriness and reflectiveness sometimes. The next three items were all part of a set of jewels which belonged to Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense. The stolen parts of this set are one of a pair of Ceylon sapphire earrings dated to 1800 to 1835 and including 59 diamonds, a sapphire necklace comprised of eight Ceylon sapphires and 631 diamonds set in gold and also dated to 1800 to 1835 by the Louvre website, plus a sapphire diadem dated to 1800 to 1825. They were created by an unknown jeweler in Paris and because their full provenance is unknown, unsubstantiated rumours have flourished that the diadem came from Queen Marie Antoinette. It also contains Ceylon sapphires, 24 of them, plus 1,083 diamonds in gold settings and its stones could be detached to be worn as a series of brooches. We know from old portraits that it was originally larger in size and was reduced between 1863 and 1873. All of these pieces, the earrings, the necklace and the diadem, went to Marie-Amélie's granddaughter Isabelle of Orleans and stayed with the Orleans family until 1985. In hindsight, they might have been better off with them. Moving on, we have the Reliquary Brooch of Empress Eugenie. This was made in Paris in 1855 and contained 85 diamonds set in gold. It was created by Alfred and Christophe Frédéric Bapst and was another item made for the Exposition Universelle at the behest of Napoleon III. What makes this so special is that two of the diamonds in it were from a collection of 18 that were known as the Mazarin Diamonds and which were left by Cardinal Mazarin to King Louis XIV in 1661. A crown of Empress Eugenie's was recovered from the scene, having been damaged and dropped by the robbers. It was created in 1855 in Paris and contains 2,490 diamonds and 56 emeralds set in gold. The information card beneath it in the Louvre read, this is the only remaining crown of two created by the court jeweler Alexandre Gabriel Lemonnier for the Exposition Universelle of 1855. It was returned to Eugenie in 1873 after the fall of the Second Empire, thereby saving it from destruction. It seems it has been saved from destruction again thanks to being dropped by the robbers. The director of the museum, Laurence Descartes, has said that it was damaged when being extracted from the small gap made in the glass display case but that a delicate restoration will hopefully be possible. So what do I think has happened to these jewels and why was I referring to their appearance and settings in the past tense? Well, sadly I think by now they will have been broken out of those settings and the more recognisable stones recut to make them anonymous for sale. They would simply be too famous and too hot, for lack of a better term, to be worn, sold or even shown privately in their proper settings and really no one steals jewels like this to show them off privately anyway. In June or July 1907, we don't know the exact date because no one noticed they were gone for such a long time, the Irish crown jewels were stolen from a safe in Dublin Castle, never to be seen again, and they almost certainly met the same fate. Likewise, I think the famous Amber Room, created in the early 1700s and which spent most of its existence in Russia before being stolen by the Nazis during World War II, was also dismantled and sold off in bits. See my video about it linked on screen and below to learn more. I think too that the jewellery stolen from Kim Kardashian, also in Paris in 2016, was broken up for resale very fast and as with the Louvre, the only item salvaged was one that was dropped by the robbers as they made their escape. Though the gang were caught, Ms Kardashian never got her property back. Still, at least we know what was taken in those cases. One of the many things that made the theft of items from the British Museum over the course of many years, allegedly by a staff member, so appalling, was that due to very poor inventory keeping, we aren't even sure exactly what was taken. The stolen jewels have been valued at 88 million euros, but in truth they are priceless as the history they represent cannot be replaced, and the incident has, rightly in my opinion, been called a national disaster for France, which is only just recovering from the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in April 2019, which resulted in over five years of restoration work being required. This would be as devastating as the crown jewels of the United Kingdom being stolen would be for Brits and it's truly a huge cultural loss to France and one which can never be repaired. Questions have been raised regarding the security of the Louvre and how this could have happened. Embarrassingly, there was only one security camera on the balcony leading into the Apollo Gallery and it was facing the wrong way and so missed the robbery. Louvre employees have also raised the issue of constant underfunding and budget cuts, which have eroded the museum's ability to protect itself and its collections. One has said that, No doubt security will now be beefed up at the Louvre to try to dissuade copycat thieves, and I imagine other museums, galleries and even the likes of the Tower of London will be re-examining their own security features going forwards to try to protect themselves from a similar fate. But for the French crown jewels stolen in Paris in October 2025, I fear that it's already too late. Enjoy the photographs we have of them, because I don't think they will ever be seen again in those forms. I hope you found that interesting. 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For some free bonus material, sign up to my mailing list on my website historycallingofficial.com and you'll get two complimentary downloads about recognizing good versus bad history books and interviewing family members about your family tree, plus my monthly newsletter. Finally, thank you as well to those of you who generously support the channel using the thanks button underneath videos. Let me know in the comments what you think the chances are that any or all of these jewels might be recovered. And for more stories of famous jewels, peruse my playlist on historical fashion and jewellery. Or if you'd like my personal recommendation, watch my video on the supposedly cursed Hope Diamond, or on the adventures of the Scottish Crown Jewels. Whatever you choose, please enjoy, and until next time, keep learning!