The Queen of Thieves - Hotel Imperial
In the predawn hours of 8 March 1908 police finally caught a glamorous cat burglar who called herself the Comtesse de Monteil, moving through the Hotel Imperial on the Promenade des Anglais in felt-soled shoes with a black veil and silver lockpicks; after roughly twenty years of robbing the Riviera's rich she was sentenced to ten years of hard labour.
About this place
The Promenade des Anglais was built in the nineteenth century as a seaside walkway for the wealthy English and Russian visitors who wintered in Nice, and by the Belle Epoque it was lined with grand hotels where fortunes in jewellery passed through the lobbies every night. One of those hotels was the Hotel Imperial, and it was here, before dawn on 8 March 1908, that police ended one of the strangest criminal careers of the age. For about two decades a woman who passed herself off as the Comtesse de Monteil had drifted through the finest hotels of Nice, Monaco and Cannes, charming her way into high society by day and robbing it by night. The press called her the Spider and the Queen of Thieves. Her real name was Amelie Condemine, and she was the daughter of a butcher from Macon. Caught at last in felt-soled shoes, a black veil over her face and a set of silver lockpicks in her hand, she was tried, convicted and sentenced to ten years of hard labour. She appealed, and lost.
Key facts
- 1908 year — She was finally caught before dawn on 8 March 1908 inside the Hotel Imperial.
- 20 years — Roughly how long she had robbed the wealthy of the Riviera before her arrest.
- 10 years hard labour — The sentence she received after conviction, which she appealed without success.
📍 Promenade des Anglais 73, 06000, Nice