The Crown of Louis XV
Augustin Duflos (goldsmith), Laurent Rondé (jeweller), after a design by Claude Rondé (Duflos active first half of the 18th century) · 1722
Made for the coronation of the twelve-year-old Louis XV at Reims on 25 October 1722, the crown is the only French royal crown of the Ancien Régime to have survived the Revolution. Eight fleur-de-lis arches rise from a jewelled band to meet under a fleur-de-lis finial, and a cap of purple embroidered satin fills the interior. The shape follows the old closed crown of the French kings, but the goldsmith Augustin Duflos gave it a lighter, more rococo silhouette than its predecessors.
What you see glittering in the settings is glass. The original stones were only lent to the crown for the ceremony: 282 diamonds, 64 coloured stones and 237 pearls, among them the Regent set in the front fleur-de-lis and the Sancy at the top. They were removed within months and replaced with replicas by the Rondé workshop so that the object could be kept as a record in the royal treasury at Saint-Denis. The trick saved it, because a crown full of paste was not worth breaking up in 1793 as the other regalia were.
The piece passed to the Louvre and became the anchor of the Crown Jewels display in the Galerie d'Apollon. Compare it with the far grander Crown of Empress Eugénie nearby, and with the vanished medieval Crown of Charlemagne it was meant to evoke. The Louvre's own record notes restricted access for this room. After the theft of 19 October 2025 the jewels were taken off display and the gallery reopened on 22 July 2026 without its vitrines filled, so confirm the current arrangement before planning a visit around it.
Did You Know? Every stone in it is a fake, and that is precisely why it survived the Revolution when the rest of the French regalia were broken up.
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