23.10.2025
Investigators are astonished thieves who carted away priceless jewels Sunday October 19 from the Louvre Museum in Paris, France ignored a $60m diamond.
The jewel, known as the Regent Diamond, was worn by French royals including Marie Antoinette, France’s last known Queen, is speculated be cursed. This is because royals who wore it were met with misfortune.
According to Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau she “[doesn’t] have an explanation” for why the precious stone was left behind as millions of dollars worth of other jewelry was carted away. “It’ll only be when they’re in custody and face investigators that we’ll know what type of order they had and why they didn’t target that window [with the Regent Diamond],” she said.
The Regent Diamond is no small stone. Per Britannica, it originally weighed an astonishing 410 carats when discovered in India in 1701. (The Louvre reports it being discovered in 1698.) After being purchased by Sir Thomas Pitt in 1702, according to his letters from the time, the diamond was cut down to about 140 or 141 carats, the size it remains at today. Sotheby’s estimated its worth at over $60 million, Reuters reported in 2025.
Its exact origins are unknown, but legend holds that it was smuggled out of a mine by an enslaved person who was subsequently murdered by an English ship captain.
The captain then is said to have sold the diamond to a merchant who in turn sold it to Pitt, then the British governor in Madras, India.
He later sold the Pitt diamond to the Duke of Orléans, regent of France until Louis XV came of age, in 1717. From then on, it became known as the Regent Diamond.
The cushion-cut brilliant stone “was worn by all the French rulers,” according to the Louvre Museum’s official website, including, famously, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Their fate—being executed by guillotine for treason during the French Revolution—added credence to the notion that the diamond was cursed and brought tragedy to whoever possessed it.
Amidst the turmoil of the revolution, the French crown jewels were stolen in 1792. The Regent was recovered one year later, per a National Geographic recount of the heist, and became a decoration for Napoleon Bonaparte’s swords. Napoleon died in exile in 1821, and the diamond made its way to Empress Eugénie (wife of Bonaparte’s nephew, Napoleon III) before landing at the Louvre in the late 19th century. With InStyle reports.
