Louvre to Restore Empress Eugénie’s Recovered Crown (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The crown was found battered on the pavement after robbers at the Louvre dropped it in the heist. It was below the window the robbers used to escape back in October and it is now to be restored to its former glory. While clearly deformed from the fall, Empress Eugenie's crown miraculously kept all of its 56 emeralds and lost only 10 of its diamonds, of which it has well over a thousand. The crown was commissioned by Napoleon III in the 1800s and is the only crown of a sovereign preserved in France. It was first presented at the 1855 Universal Exhibition and acquired by the Louvre in the 1980s. Jewellery houses are bidding to be entrusted with restoring the crown and it's expected to be competitive. The museum says it has already received offers from the likes of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Chaumet.