Galerie d'Apollon

In total, the museum displayed 12 Renoir paintings.

Tuesday's heist comes after a group of thieves used a cherry picker to break into the Louvre last October, before escaping the museum's Apollo Gallery on scooters carrying French crown jewels.

Authorities said the total value of the stolen goods is estimated at around 88 million euros, or $100 million.

The Apollo Gallery was finally reopened to the public in July, but none of the remaining crown jewels were put on display.

The jewels were moved into a secure storage area, and visitors entering the Apollo Gallery can now only view its gilded ceilings and walls, sculptures and frescoes.

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And then it is shown in the Louvre Museum, the Museum Napoleon, as it was called, and it gets a lot of attention.

This first exhibition was in the Louvre's ornate Apollo Gallery from December 1803 to February 1804.

Napoleon saw it on the opening, reportedly entranced by the comet that had supposedly foretold Harold's demise.

Conveniently, a meteor had just been sighted in France.

And here at the entrance, there's a war memorial which bears the evocative words, we, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror's native land.

But as Allied forces were pushing further into France, the Bayeux tapestry, that great survivor, was in peril.

the Gestapo had it moved again to Paris, where it found itself back at the Louvre Museum, not at the Apollo Gallery this time, but again in a basement crate.

The Allies were advancing and it was in the bowels of the Louvre and an SS squad was sent to retrieve it, but Bletchley Park got wind of messages saying that this was about to happen.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they stole eight pieces of the French crown jewels from the Galerie d'Apollon, valued at approximately 88 million euros or 102 million dollars.

It's

probably worth more than that.

Enjoy.

We all know about the Louvre jewel heist from last October, or at least you do if you listen to episode 137 of History Fix from around that same time, when thieves posing as maintenance workers broke into the Louvre's Apollo Gallery through a window, smashed display cases in broad daylight, and made off with $102 million worth of France's crown jewels in about eight minutes flat while security guards stood by doing absolutely nothing.

There were obviously a

lot of flaws in

The torque theft recalls the brazen theft at the Louvre in Paris, in which thieves made off with $102 million worth of jewels in less than eight minutes, also in broad daylight.

That high-profile theft ultimately caused the museum's president to resign and expedited the Louvre's plans to address its dated security systems, which the museum is expected to begin in January 2027.

The Louvre's Apollo Gallery, where the stolen crown jewels had been on display, reopened this week without the jewels, which are still missing.

The Louvre heist led to several other museums across France facing similar thefts.