French Crown Jewels

The surviving French Crown Jewels, principally a set of historic crowns, diadems and parures, are mainly on display in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre, France's premier museum and former royal palace, together with the Regent Diamond, the Sancy Diamond and the 105-carat (21.0 g) Côte-de-Bretagne red spinel, carved into the form of a dragon.

In addition, some gemstones and jewels (including the Emerald of Saint Louis, the Ruspoli sapphire and the diamond pins of Queen Marie Antoinette) are on display in the Treasury vault of the Mineralogy gallery in the National Museum of Natural History.

Since Pepin the Short in 752, the accession of the King of France was legitimated by a coronation ceremony called a sacre, since the emphasis was on the unction with the chrism of the Holy Ampulla, performed for the first time at Notre-Dame de Reims in 816 for Louis the Pious, then with the Crown of Charlemagne.

[2] The Regalia,[3] much lightly hit in 1590, were originally kept in the treasure of the Basilica of Saint Denis[4] from where they were removed in 1793 during the French Revolution.

Some few pieces of the treasure, considered to present an artistic value, were preserved and sent to the Louvre, which sold 9 of them in 1798, the National Library, the Natural History Museum, and the archbishops of Rouen (5 items) and Paris.

[10] But some of the most valuable precious stones could be removed from them, since it was traditional for a French king to bequeath his crown to the treasury of the Abbey, now Basilica of St Denis, on their deaths.

The crown of Napoleon was made by the jeweller Martin-Guillaume Biennais with antique cameos for the coronation of the Emperor in 1804.

His gilded crown of laurels[11] was destroyed in 1819 by Louis XVIII with the one of Empress Josephine, the orb and the eagle sceptre.

[25] The addition of cameos and other medieval gemstones, like the 12th-century ring of Saint Denis which surrounds the junction of the finial and the replaced rod, represents a deliberate 19th-century anachronism.

The collection keeps as well the 14th-century brooch or fermail said of Saint Louis, a large diamond shaped fibula bearing a fleur-de-lis in precious stones, which was used to hold the coronation's robe.

[29] The serpentine paten said to be of Abbot Suger of the 1st century BC or AD, associated with the Cup of the Ptolemies, was used at the coronation of queens and keeps its gem-studded gold Carolingian mountings of Charles the Bald.

[32] The treatment of the Regent Diamond epitomised the attitude of the French Royal Family to the Crown Jewels.

The Royal French Blue was transformed into the Hope Diamond now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.. With two remaining jewels of the Renaissance, the Côte-de-Bretagne red spinel and the Dragon perle, a pin shaped into the form of a delphin, the crown jewels collection contains as well among others, the emerald set and pearl earrings of Empress Josephine, the micromosaic[33] and the emerald and diamond[34] sets of Empress Marie Louise, the pair of bracelets of rubies[35] and the emerald diadem[36] of the Duchess of Angoulême, the sapphire set of Queen Marie Amélie,[37] a diamond cross of the Order of the Holy Spirit and a diamond portrait box of Louis XIV.

[38][39] Some gemstones and jewels are on display in the Treasury vault of the Mineralogy gallery in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle.

Some of the sovereign's robes of the coronation of Charles X and regalia specially made by Feuchère for this event including the gilt-bronze Crown of Charles X (his coronation crown was destroyed by the Third Republic) and the Crown of Queen Marie Thérèse of Savoy are displayed in one of the chapels of the nave of the Basilica of Saint Denis with the funerary Regalia of king Louis XVIII (sceptre, hand of justice and copy of the sword and scabbard of Charlemagne).

They are displayed with the few remaining pieces of the medieval treasure of the cathedral and the Talisman of Charlemagne, a large sapphire said to have been given by the Caliph Harun al-Rashid which was found in the Emperor's grave in 1804 and later offered by Empress Eugenie.

It was even tangentially associated with the case of the murdered Lindbergh baby, when its then owner, silver heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean, pawned it to raise money that she ended up paying to a con-man unconnected with the actual kidnapping.

Pierre Cartier, the Parisian jeweler, is widely credited with publicizing the stories of a curse on the diamond in hopes of increasing its saleability.

However, the decision of Henri, Comte de Chambord not to accept the French Crown in the early 1870s ended not just the prospect of a royal restoration.

The Brazilian beauty Aimée de Heeren,[48] WW2 secret service agent for President Getúlio Vargas was known for being the largest private owner of the French Crown jewels, along with other important jewelry.