Laurence de Cars, director of the Louvre, has stepped down following the theft of French royal jewels from one of the world’s most popular museums.
Read More: Discover France’s crown jewels which were stolen in daring daytime raid.
It was the daring daytime robbery that shocked the world. On the morning of 19th October 2025, nine priceless jewels that once belonged to Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie were stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in a heist that lasted just seven minutes.
The treasured horde was stolen from the Louvre’s opulently gilded Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) which is home to a collection of the French Crown Jewels, alongside precious paintings, vessels, tapestries and medallions.
Nine pieces of jewellery were taken from the Napoleon and French Sovereignty display cases, which housed pieces once owned by the infamous Emperor Napoleon, his nephew Napoleon III, and their wives, the empresses Marie-Louise and Eugenie.
These included a tiara from the set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense; an earring from a pair belonging to the sapphire set of of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense; the emerald necklace and pair of earrings from the Empress Marie-Louise set (created by the Parisian jewellers Nitot et Fils, which eventually became the house of Chaumet); the diamond ‘Reliquary Brooch’, the tiara of Empress Eugenie and Empress Eugenie’s large corsage bow brooch (pictured above).
As the thieves sped away from the scene, they dropped a 19th-Century diamond crown which also belonged to Empress Eugenie, which was damaged but is now being restored.
Four months after the heist, the Louvre’s director Laurence des Cars has just submitted her resignation to President Emmanuel Macron, who said that her choice to step down came at a time when the Louvre required “calm and strong new impetus to successfully carry out major projects involving security, and modernisation,” according to the BBC.
Four suspects have been arrested in connection to the raid, but the eight precious jewels that were stolen (thought to be worth over £76 million, or $104 million) have yet to be recovered.
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