“The Musée du Louvre will remain closed today for exceptional reasons,” a message to guests stated on the famed Paris museum’s web site on October 19, 2025. “All reservations for today’s date will be reimbursed. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
The “exceptional” cause is a dramatic and daring four-minute heist that netted a bunch of robbers some of the French crown jewels.
According to CNN, the French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed on French radio: “A major robbery took place this morning (October 19) in the Apollo Room. Individuals entered the Louvre Museum from outside, using an external freight elevator that was positioned on a truck.”
Three to 4 robbers stole priceless jewellery from a room that contained the French crown jewels, in response to CNNwhich famous that the heist concerned utilizing an “angle grinder” to power open a window.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the heist took 4 minutes. The robbers “smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels,” the Times reported, including that some of the jewellery stolen belongs to the assortment of “French crown jewels.”
The thieves took Empress Eugénie’s crown, but it surely was “recovered broken,” The Times reported, including that vacationers had been the Mona Lisa 270 yards away when the theft unfolded. She was Napoleon III’s spouse.
According to The Timesthe thieves entered utilizing a “freight elevator,” stole 9 objects (the full record is just not but clear) which are”linked to Napoleon and the Empress,” after which fled on motorbikes. The Mona Lisa was not stolen; it is situated in a unique room close by.
But The Parisiana French-language newspaper, described the objects by reporting that “nine objects have been stolen: it is an adornment, a necklace, earrings, two crowns – including that of the Empress Eugenie found broken – and a brooch.”
Alexandre Giquello, head of a famed public sale home, advised The Parisian“The venal value of these lots, which will probably be broken to draw gold from them on the one hand, and diamonds or precious stones from them, is incomparable in relation to the historical, heritage, universal value of such jewels.”
“The government, the ultimate symbol of its collapse, has let the jewels of the Crown be stolen! When the state no longer ensures the security of its treasures, it is the entire nation that is threatened,” stated the head of the Union of Right for the Republic (UDR) Eric Ciotti, on X.
The Apollo gallery dates to the 1600s. “On 6th February 1661, flames ripped through the splendid Petite Galerie dating from the reign of Henri IV. Henri’s grandson, Louis XIV, immediately set about constructing an even more beautiful gallery to replace it and entrusted its design to the architect Louis Le Vau,” the Louvre’s web site says.
“The young king, aged twenty-three, had recently chosen the sun as his emblem, and so this became the theme of his new gallery, named after Apollo, the Greek god of the sun and the arts.”
What are the French Crown Jewels? The Louvre’s web site web page on the Apollo Room says, “The royal collection also includes the Crown Jewels. The so-called ‘Côte de Bretagne’ spinel, which once belonged to Anne de Bretagne, is the oldest of the gems to have survived a tumultuous history involving theft, dispersal and sale.”
It continues: “Three historical diamonds – the Regent, the Sancy and the Hortensia – formerly adorned royal crowns or garments. The spectacular 19th-century jewellery sets in the collection include emerald and diamond pieces that once belonged to Empress Marie Louise.”