The loot

The theft of France's most important jewels from the Louvre has brought back many stories of thieves. Cinema has accustomed us to this type of plot: a group of characters, both marginal and sophisticated, plan a major robbery, in which ingenuity and intelligence play a more important role than profit or brute force. They are always fascinating, lively, and at the same time stupid characters, as will be those who have now dared to enter the Louvre and steal Napoleon's jewels, whose fate can only lie on the black market.

It takes a lot of intelligence, audacity, and courage to perpetrate a crime like this, and it is also a shame, or a plunder of what is already the heritage of all French people. But who would dare to carry out a robbery of that magnitude without having assured the sale of the pieces and therefore without knowing whether the risk will be worth it or not? And where better to be, as the heritage of a thief (who won't be rich) or in a display case, visible to tourists? And who but someone very rich, and very possibly from outside the West, might be tempted to want these treasures, whose possession also cannot be displayed without exposing the crime and spurring international justice? Or the inevitable: the pieces will be broken down and the diamonds will be sold as if they hadn't come from those historic crowns, distorting their legend.

In stories about thieves, it's more important to make a big deal out of it than to ultimately fail to obtain the loot: the thief as a cultural figure connects with all the romantic heroes who know that glory is achieved by breaking the laws of the world, and nothing more sacrilegious than bourgeois society, bourgeois society. The thief reminds us that even the most sacred and protected can still be desecrated, and that neither laws nor safes can do anything against a group of men with a plan and equipped with audacity. The real jewel they've stolen is the world's attention, not the gold, silver, or diamonds: in a world where these things weren't newsworthy, they wouldn't have bothered to steal anything. The French have made fools of themselves—or admired the world, if the thieves are French—but the scandal will be even greater if they fail to capture the culprits and recover the loot. But the most valuable thing here is the story…