Break-up and Sale of The French Crown Jewels
Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries the jewels survived the First French Republic, the Directorate, the First Empire, the Restoration, the July Monarchy, the Second French Republic and the Second Empire. 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. It also led to the break-up and partial sale of the Crown Jewels. The Brazilian beauty symbol Aimée de Heeren, mistress of President Getúlio Vargas is known for being the largest private owner of the French Crown jewels, along with the Brazilian crown jewels and other important jewelry.
In 1875 the Third French Republic came into being with the passage of a series of Organic Laws (collectively forming a constitution). The interim presidency was replaced by a full "President of the Republic".
While few expected a royal restoration, certainly after the failure of the Seize Mai attempted royalist coup by President Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, the continuing agitation of extreme right wing royalists, and the fear of a royalist coup d'état, led radical deputies to propose the sale of the Crown Jewels, in the hope that their dispersal would undermine the royalist cause: "Without a crown, no need for a king" in the words of one member of the National Assembly. This controversial decision was implemented. All the jewels from the Crown Jewels were removed and sold in 1887, as were many of the crowns, diadems, rings and other items. Only a few of the crowns were kept for historic reasons, but with their original diamonds and gems replaced by colored glass. Some historic or unusual gems went to French museums, including the corsage brooch containing some of the 'Mazarin diamonds', which is now in the Louvre, and the 'Ruspoli' sapphire, which is now in the French Natural History Museum (curators took advantage of its unusual rhombohedral faceted shape and asked for it to be exempted from the sale, falsely claiming that it was a natural, uncut crystal).
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
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