Neapolitan neo-Bourbons write to the Louvre thieves: "Give us back part of Napoleon's loot."

Naples – A cinematic heist, a multimillion-euro theft, and, from Naples, an open letter combining irony and historical memory. After the daring theft of Napoleon's jewels from the Louvre—three thieves on a scooter, still wanted by the French police—the Neo-Bourbon Movement has decided to address those responsible directly. Not the authorities, but the thieves themselves.

"Gentle thieves," reads the appeal released by the movement, "if it is true that Napoleon's plundering represented the largest displacement of works of art in history, and if it is true that, according to a decree of the Neapolitan Republic of February 3, 1799, all the assets of the King of Naples, the assets of the public schools, the coffers and taxes of the Kingdom, the treasures, museums, libraries, and even what lay beneath Pompeii and Herculaneum, belonged to the French Republic, we ask that a portion of your loot be symbolically returned to the Neapolitans."

The appeal, halfway between satire and vindication, leverages a theme that the neo-Bourbons have been pursuing for years: the systematic plundering of Southern Italy during Napoleon's campaigns between 1799 and 1815.

Behind the irony, there's no shortage of criticism of "official" historiography, which the movement accuses of downplaying the violence and plunder suffered by Southern Italy in the name of "importing freedom." "We trust in your knowledge of the historical truth," the letter continues, "which has too often been ignored by national, Jacobin, and even Neapolitan historians."

The message ends with a mocking but solemn greeting: “Waiting for your reply, kind regards from the former capital of the Kingdom of Naples.”

A symbolic gesture, transforming a sensational Parisian news story into a new chapter in the neo-Bourbons' long battle for identity: that for memory and for a historical justice that, according to them, never arrived.