Hidden for a Century, the Habsburg Jewels Finally Reveal Their Secret
National Catholic Register, 4 November 2026
The Habsburg family’s bequest to Quebec symbolizes a remarkable trust in God’s Providence across the oceans and through decades of exile.
Last Sept. 17 was a holiday in the Vatican, as is customary on the patronal day of the pope. Pope Leo XIV’s baptismal name is Robert, and so the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine is a holiday. During the long pontificate of St. John Paul II, the annual holiday was Nov. 4, feast of St. Charles Borromeo.
But the newborn Karol Wojtyła had not been named after Charles Borromeo, but rather in honor of the Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary. John Paul’s father had been a soldier in Karl’s army, as Austria-Hungary controlled southern Poland at the time. By the time Karol was born in 1920, the emperor was already in exile — and therein lies a tale which is currently the subject of a special museum exhibition in, of all places, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec(National Museum of Fine Arts) in Quebec City. The Habsburg jewels have surfaced a century after Karl’s death.
A pious Catholic, devoted family man and Christian emperor, Karl was beatified by John Paul in 2004, the final beatification of his pontificate. Karl’s feast day was set for Oct. 21, his wedding date to the Empress Zita.
Karl had proposed to Zita before the Blessed Sacrament at the Marian shrine of Mariazell. They would have eight children in their short marriage — Karl would die in 1922 in exile after the fall of the dual monarchy. He was only 34.
Vast as the lands of the Habsburg empire were, they never included Canada. So why are some of the family jewels in Quebec City? The museum, in fact, has entitled the exposition, “A Century of Mystery.”
In the aftermath of the First World War, Karl and his family were driven out of Vienna as a new republic was proclaimed. It was the beginning of a tale that would eventually lead his widow, and her jewels, to Quebec City.
It is also a Catholic tale.
The Great War laid waste to royal houses. By its conclusion in 1918, the Russian tsar, German kaiser, Ottoman sultan and Austrian emperor were no more. Karl was forced into exile in 1918, taking refuge in Madeira, Portugal, with his wife, Empress Zita, and his young and growing family.
Blessed Karl died young in 1922, leaving seven children and Zita expecting an eighth. With the new Austrian republic hostile to the remaining Habsburgs, Zita went first to Spain and then to Belgium. Watching the unfolding events of the 1930s, Zita and her eldest son, Crown Prince Otto, were fiercely anti-Nazi, greatly lamenting the Anschluss, Austria’s capitulation to Nazi Germany. When Hitler invaded France in 1940, it was evident that Belgium was soon to follow. Zita fled with her family, traveling on passports issued by neutral Portugal and eventually sailing for New York.
But upon crossing the Atlantic, the daily communicant had to decide where to settle.
Zita chose Quebec City for three reasons. Of supreme importance to her and the late Karl was their Catholic faith, and she wanted a strong Catholic culture where she could easily attend daily Mass. Second, her children had already begun their education in French and, while her household was conversant in a half-dozen languages, she preferred them to continue in French. Third, there were some relatives in the area. Thus, she settled in Quebec City, in a modest home called the Villa St-Joseph, owned by a Catholic order of nuns. She remained there with her younger children for 13 years, returning to Europe in 1953 to be closer to her grown children.
That’s how the jewels arrived in Quebec and remained hidden there for decades. When the monarchy fell in Vienna in 1918, Emperor Karl sent some of his family’s most significant jewels out of the country. Like the British royal family today, some jewels belong to the monarchy as such, the “crown jewels,” and then there are others that are the private property of the family. Austria expropriated Habsburg royal property in 1919, but the jewels now in Quebec, including the 137-karat Florentine Diamond, were ruled in 1923 to be the family’s private property.
The Florentine Diamond is one of the world’s most famous diamonds, with a venerable history worthy of Europe’s greatest royal dynasty. It is the masterpiece of the Quebec exposition, but the collection also includes pieces associated with the Order of the Golden Fleece, one of the most venerable Catholic orders of chivalry — an order that still exists, and whose historic insignia and vestments can be viewed at the imperial museum in Vienna.
Empress Zita considered herself the custodian of whatever was left of the Habsburg dynasty. Most important was her Catholic faith — her process for canonization is also underway — her family, and her duty toward the late Emperor Karl. The jewels were a tangible connection to all of that.
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