The Indiscreet Nonchalance of the Louvre Robbers

Video shows thieves slowly descending from museum on a mobile lift.

It’s hard to believe that the Louvre robbers really believed they could get away with their plan, which involved stealing a mobile lift truck, parking it on the Quai François Mitterrand, along the south facade of the museum facing the Seine, raising themselves slowly to the second floor window, breaking into the window with an angle grinder, entering the Apollo Gallery, smashing the display cases, gabbing the jewels, and then returning to the window for a slow descent on the lift back to the street —all in broad daylight during regular museum hours.

A video taken from a museum visitor shows them making their slow descent back to the street, where they then got into a vehicle and drove away.

While the south facade has a video surveillance camera that should have alerted security to a mobile lift truck parking next to the facade and then raising masked men to the second floor window, the camera was (we are told) aimed in the opposite direction.

What I find most astonishing about this incident is that it even occurred to the robbers that they could possibly get away with it. Something—some sort of inside knowledge or assurance—must have given them confidence that they would probably be able to pull it off.

One also wonders about the prospective buyer of the jewels, given that they could never be worn or displayed as complete objects, and that any dealer of the gemstone and pearl components would be legally obliged to ascertain their provenance before selling them.

Seems like every week in the West, we are presented with an outlandish incident that defies rational explanation.

Given that the government of France can’t close an umbrella, its current agitation for war with Russia strikes me as especially astonishing. It reminds me of the Empress Eugénie (to whom many of the stolen jewels originally belonged) agitating for war with Prussia in 1870.