Two Thieves Hid a Famous Pink Diamond in an Apple, and a Maid Found It by Taking a Bite

In a hotel bedroom in Paris in 1926, a maid picked up an apple that had been left behind. She took a bite and hit something impossibly hard.

It was not a seed. Inside the fruit was a flawless pink diamond, one of the purest diamonds in the world, worth tens of millions today.

The diamond is back on public display for the first time in a century at the Chateau de Chantilly, the palace museum it was stolen from exactly 100 years ago. Its color is unusual, and its century out of view began when two men stole it.

The thieves took the pink gem along with other jewelry from the chateau in 1926, said Mathieu Deldicque, the director of the Conde Museum inside the chateau. The gem was too famous to sell. Its theft was published in all the newspapers, and the men did not manage to sell it.

Unable to sell it, the men hollowed out an apple, slipped the diamond inside, and left the fruit in their hotel bedroom in Paris. The maid found it when she bit into the apple.

The diamond was recovered after about two months and returned to the chateau. But the public did not see it again. For a century it was kept in a safe place, hidden from view because the museum did not have the security system needed to show it safely.

It is a royal gem with a long past. It likely originated in India, was shaped in the British capital in the early 1700s, and has been owned since then by the Prince de Conde, cousins of French kings. Gemologists say its pink color is quite unique. Deldicque described it as "a very subtle pink with a touch of orange."

It is now a public French treasure, shown only under exceptional security. Museum officials installed a whole security system just to display it temporarily, until January the 3rd. A century after a maid bit into an apple and found a fortune, visitors can finally look at the stone without taking a bite.