By Solène Tadié
Paris, France, Oct 21, 2025 /
13:07 pm
The Louvre Museum in Paris became the scene of a meticulously planned daylight heist on Sunday morning, Oct. 19. Four helmeted men broke into the Galerie d’Apollon — home to France’s Crown Jewels — and stole eight pieces of jewelry described by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez as being of “inestimable heritage value.”
Among the stolen items was Empress Eugénie’s “reliquary” brooch, which reminded the world of the fervent Catholic faith of Napoleon III’s wife, now better known as a pioneer of modern luxury.
The robbers, who arrived in a truck on Quai François Mitterrand — the riverside avenue that runs along the Seine just below the Louvre’s main facade in central Paris — used a furniture lift to reach a first-floor window, broke into the gallery, and escaped on scooters within minutes. One jewel — Empress Eugénie’s crown — was later found broken near the museum, while the thieves remain at large.
Crafted in 1855 by court jeweler Paul Alfred Bapst, the brooch combined imperial splendor with intimate symbolism.
Experts at the Louvre noted that the term “reliquary,” associated with the brooch since the sale of the Crown Diamonds in 1887 and engraved on its fastening pin, has long intrigued historians. The jewel contains no visible chamber to hold a relic.
However, because it can be dismantled, curators suggest it may have been designed to allow the insertion of an intermediate element that could later contain one. On the back of its case lies a small compartment that may have served this purpose — a detail consistent with Empress Eugénie’s noted personal devotion.
The jewelry piece was set with 94 diamonds, including three of extraordinary provenance. Two — known as Mazarin 17th and 18th — were part of the legendary set of 18 gems bequeathed to Louis XIV by Cardinal Jules Mazarin in 1661, while the central stone — once a button on the Sun King’s doublet and later an earring of Marie-Antoinette — linked three centuries of French history.
Historian Éric Anceau, an expert of France’s Second Empire, called the theft “a catastrophe.”
“A piece of our heritage forged over three centuries has disappeared,” he wrote.
The heritage association Sites et Monuments echoed this sentiment, describing the brooch as “a brief summary of French history” and warning that its jewels “are likely to be dismantled and recut to facilitate their resale.”
Empress Eugénie’s reputation as a fashionable sovereign has often overshadowed her deep personal piety. Contemporary witnesses describe her as charitable and devout, even excessively so in the eyes of her detractors. She prayed daily, supported religious orders, and personally oversaw imperial donations to hospitals, parishes, and relief funds — efforts sometimes referred to as her “Ministry of Charity.”
Her faith was also recognized by the Church. At the baptism of the imperial prince in Notre Dame de Paris, June 1856, Pope Pius IX sent her a Golden Rose — the highest papal distinction to reward piety or services rendered to the Church.
Two years later, she intervened to reopen the grotto of Lourdes to pilgrims after her son’s healing, as highlighted by Aleteia, which also mentions that during the cholera epidemic of 1865, she visited the sick in person, bringing comfort to the afflicted.
The Fondation Napoléon today preserves some of Empress Eugénie‘s devotional objects, including a rosary gifted by Trappist monks in Algeria in 1865 and a prayer book on which she recorded with a handwritten note the date of Napoleon III’s death in 1873.
The reliquary brooch embodied the continuity between monarchy and empire, between power and faith. By way of its reused royal diamonds and historicist design of gilded silver and floral motifs, the brooch reflected both France’s artistic genius and Christian heritage. Its disappearance therefore marks the vanishing of a tangible link between France’s temporal grandeur and soul as the eldest daughter of the Church.
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French authorities have opened an investigation for “organized theft and criminal conspiracy to commit a crime,” led by the Paris Judicial Police’s AntiCrime Brigade. Sixty investigators are currently assigned to the case.
According to TF1/LCI, a promising lead emerged on Oct. 21: The furniture lift used in the break-in was traced to a carjacking in the nearby town of Louvres, where several men posing as buyers allegedly stole the machine after threatening an employee nine days before the heist.
Investigators later discovered that the lift’s license plate and identifying markings had been altered, adding to the growing body of evidence left behind by the thieves — including two angle grinders, a glove, a blowtorch, a blanket, a walkie-talkie, and a can of gasoline.
Solène Tadié is the Europe Correspondent for the National Catholic Register. She is French-Swiss and grew up in Paris. After graduating from Roma III University with a degree in journalism, she began reporting on Rome and the Vatican for Aleteia. She joined L’Osservatore Romano in 2015, where she successively worked for the French section and the Cultural pages of the Italian daily newspaper. She has also collaborated with several French-speaking Catholic media organizations. Solène has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
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