It is a story so improbable that even Hollywood’s best screenwriters might struggle to decide where to begin. The 15 jewels found last year in a bank vault in Quebec all belonged to the Austrian imperial family, the Habsburgs. Exiled after the 1918 Armistice and hidden from the Nazis in 1940, they had vanished from public view for decades, with no one knowing what had become of them.
It was only in 2025 that the imperial family chose to reveal the fate of its treasures to the world, and it has now agreed to put them on display.
Zita de Bourbon-Parme, the last empress
The Austrian jewels ended up in a Quebec bank because of the last empress, Zita de Bourbon-Parme, wife of the brief Austro-Hungarian emperor Charles I. Charles came to the throne in November 1916, after the death of his great-uncle Franz Joseph — husband of Empress Sissi — but he did not wear the crown for long.
On 11 November 1918, Austria-Hungary found itself on the losing side of the First World War. The young emperor abdicated on the same day and left the country with his family a few months later.
Among the imperial couple’s possessions were the 15 jewels, considered their private property. Most of the Habsburg ancestral treasure never left Austria and is now on display in Vienna’s striking Imperial Treasury Museum.
Zita and Charles lived for a time in Switzerland, then in Madeira, where the deposed young emperor died of bronchitis at the age of just 34. Widowed, Zita moved to Spain in search of a warmer climate. Belgium was then to become her home, where she lived with her eight children. Her diamonds, however, remained hidden in Switzerland.
A family secret
When Hitler invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, the former empress hurriedly left her home in Steenokkerzeel and flew to Canada. In her luggage were the 15 forgotten Habsburg treasures, which were placed in a safe deposit box in Quebec.
Fearful that her inheritance might fall into Nazi hands after the annexation of Austria in 1938, Zita kept the jewels’ location secret. She told only her two eldest sons, making them promise not to reveal anything for several decades. She wanted to wait until the centenary of Charles I’s death.
The secret was passed down from one generation to the next, and it was finally in 2025, 103 years after the death of the last Habsburg emperor, that the existence of the jewels was made public. In consultation with the Canadian authorities, the Habsburg descendants decided to leave the jewels in Quebec, where they are now on display at the Musée national des Beaux-Arts.
“La ville de Québec a offert sécurité, respect et espoir à ma famille durant une époque de profonde incertitude“, said Karl von Habsburg, grandson of Empress Zita. “La présentation au Musée de ces joyaux est une expression de profonde gratitude envers le Québec et le Canada, qui ont accueilli et abrité ma grand-mère et ses huit enfants pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.”
Exceptional jewels – The pocket watch of Marie-Antoinette
Among the pieces is the pocket watch of Marie-Antoinette. The source text identifies the collection as 15 jewels belonging to the Habsburg imperial family, but does not provide a full inventory of the items now being shown in Quebec.
The exhibition at the Musée national des Beaux-Arts of Quebec presents the recovered treasures for the first time in the province, bringing to light a family history that spans the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Second World War and a century of secrecy.
The discovery adds a new chapter to the story of the Habsburgs, whose imperial treasures are otherwise associated with Vienna’s treasury museum.
In Quebec, the jewels are being shown under the title “Un trésor caché, Un siècle de mystère”(A hidden treasure, A century of mystery), with the museum’s display marking the first time these lost family pieces have been publicly revealed in the province.