Editing Hope Diamond (section)

=== Theft, disappearance and concealment ===
On September 11, 1792, while Louis XVI and his family were imprisoned in the [[Square du Temple]] during the early stages of the French Revolution's [[Reign of Terror]], a group of thieves broke into the Royal Storehouse—the ''Hôtel du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne'' (now ''[[Hôtel de la Marine]]'')—stealing most of the Crown Jewels in a five-day looting spree.<ref name="twsI44ll" /> While many jewels were later recovered, including other pieces of the ''Order of the Golden Fleece'', the French Blue was not among them and it disappeared from history.<ref name="twsI35" />

On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was [[guillotine]]d; Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16 of the same year. These beheadings are commonly cited as a result of the diamond's "curse," but the historical record suggests that Marie Antoinette had never worn the Golden Fleece pendant because it had been reserved for the exclusive use of the King.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Order of the Golden Fleece {{!}} European knighthood order |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Order-of-the-Golden-Fleece |access-date=2021-05-08 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>

A likely scenario is that the French Blue, sometimes also known as the Blue Diamond,<ref name=twsI44ll/> was "swiftly smuggled to [[London]]" after being seized in 1792 in Paris.<ref name=twsI44ll/> But, the exact rock known as the French Blue was never seen again, since it almost certainly was recut during this decades-long period of anonymity,<ref name=twsI44ll/> with the largest remaining piece becoming the Hope Diamond. One report suggested that the cut was a "butchered job" because it sheared off {{convert|23.5|carat|g oz|adj=on}} from the larger rock as well as hurting its "extraordinary luster."<ref name=twsI44ll/>

It was long believed that the Hope Diamond was cut from the French Blue,<ref name="twsI44mm" /> but confirmation came when a three-dimensional [[lead]]en model of the latter was rediscovered in the archives of the Paris [[National Museum of Natural History (France)|National Museum of Natural History]] in 2005. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model differs slightly from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing [[Computer-aided design|CAD]] technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the recut stone.<ref>{{Cite web |date=February 7, 2007 |title=Francois Farges Abstract |url=http://mineralsciences.si.edu/abstracts/farges.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716115217/http://mineralsciences.si.edu/abstracts/farges.htm |archive-date=July 16, 2011 |access-date=October 11, 2010 |publisher=Mineralsciences.si.edu}}</ref><ref>[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6946421 Hope Diamond originally came from French crown]  Associated Press</ref>

The leaden model revealed 20 unknown facets on the back of the French Blue. It also confirmed the diamond underwent a rather rough recut that removed the three points and reduced the thickness by a few millimeters. The [[Louis XIV|Sun King]]'s blue diamond became unrecognizable and the baroque style of the original cut was definitely lost.

Historians suggested that one burglar, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels, including the French Blue and the ''Côte-de-Bretagne'' [[spinel]], to [[Le Havre]] and then to [[London]], where the French Blue was cut in two pieces.

Morel adds that in 1796, Guillot attempted to resell the ''Côte-de-Bretagne'' in France but was forced to relinquish it to fellow thief Lancry de la Loyelle, who put Guillot into [[debtors' prison]].

In a contrasting report, historian Richard Kurin speculated that the "theft" of the French Crown Jewels was in fact engineered by the revolutionary leader [[Georges Danton]] as part of a plan to bribe an opposing military commander, [[Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick|Duke Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick]].<ref name=twsI44ll/> When under attack by [[Napoleon]] in 1805, Karl Wilhelm may have had the French Blue recut to disguise its identity; in this form, the stone could have come to Great Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter [[Caroline of Brunswick]]. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent (later [[George IV of the United Kingdom]]), she lived apart from her husband, and financial straits sometimes forced her to quietly sell her own jewels to support her household. Caroline's nephew, [[Charles II, Duke of Brunswick|Duke Karl Friedrich]], was later known to possess a {{convert|13.75|carat|g oz|adj=on}} blue diamond which was widely thought to be another piece of the French Blue.

This smaller diamond's present whereabouts are unknown, and the recent CAD reconstruction of the French Blue fits too tightly around the Hope Diamond to allow for the existence of a sister stone of that size.