When intruders broke their way into the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre and used an angle grinder to cut through the display cases, they stole a hoard of Napoleon jewels.

However, in their gallant flight through the window, the crown of Empress Eugene fell out of their hands and lay bruised down on the sidewalk below.

More than 100 days after the dramatic fall of the crown, the Louvre museum published images of its present condition, before the restoration work that it hopes will revive the image of its former glory.

The royal headdress was commissioned by Napoleon III, made for Empress Eugenie de Montijo and first showcased at the 1855 Universal Exposition in Paris.

The object is part of a rare group of French royal jewellery, which the country still possesses, with most of it stolen during the French Revolution of 1789. Most of what was left was sold by the French state in a republican wave nearly a century later.

It was never used to coronate someone, but it was a symbol of imperial authority prior to being donated to the Louvre in 1988.

The crown, with its 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, the eight palmettes that some groups of grouped gold eagles so solemnly, had been delighting the eyes of millions of visitors for decades.

One eagle is lost today, half the palmettes are lost today, some of them crooked.

What once had been a symbol of imperial power, the diamond-and-emerald orb is immersed in the crumpled frame of the crown, yet still, it is still there.

A report by the Louvre suggests that the flexible mount of the crown was used when thieves pulled it off the display in a small slot made by the angle grinder.

In the report, the museum said that the “hoops of the crown had detached, and one of these had already been lost in the gallery.”

“As it fell, it must have stamped the fragile antique to death,” it added.

Although its form has been altered, virtually every part of the crown remains, which means that it can be restored rather than rebuilt or recreated, the museum has added. It will just entail reforming its structure.

It has retained all her emeralds, and of the 1,354 diamonds, but about ten in small size, of the 56, on the perimeter of the base, have vanished. There were nine others that were detached but spared.

Louvre has announced that restorers are soon to be invited to propose on the repair of the crown, in the competitive bidding process that will be conducted by a newly formed committee of experts.

The museum itself has reported offers made to it since the October heist to assist in restoring the crown with the help of the prestigious jewellery houses of Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Mellerio, Chaumet and Boucheron.

The theft took place in the overall eight jewellery items, exclusive of the crown, in the break-in of the Louvre seven minutes back in October.

One of them was a tiara, a necklace and earrings of a single sapphire worn by Queen Marie-Amely and Queen Hortense, an emerald necklace and earrings owned by Empress Marie-Louise, and the so-called “brooch of Empress Eugene.”