To the world, the news was astonishing, bordering on incomprehensible: Four Parisians were up and about early on a Sunday morning (well, 9:30). And not only that—they had robbed the Louvre.
The people of France, upon learning that two tiaras, two brooches, two necklaces, and 1.5 pairs of earrings had been stolen, reacted with humiliation and apoplexy. The director of the Louvre called the theft a “terrible failure.” The French president labeled it an “attack.” The crime, the minister of justice said, had given the country an “image terrible”—this last remark raising uncomfortable questions: How exactly do French people imagine the rest of the world conceives of their hexagonal nation? As a futuristic police state where the rule of law is rigorously enforced? Surely, to everyone outside the republic, a pair of cat burglars cleverly robbing a museum in broad daylight and escaping—Beep! Beep!—on mopeds is very nearly the Frenchest thing that could have happened.
The Louvre, it turns out—at least certain nooks of the ancient former palace—is something like an anopticon: a place where no one is observed.
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