Across Europe, museums — those open sanctuaries where civilisation places its most precious memories — are becoming targets of a new kind of predation: fast, violent, and emboldened by success. Since a landmark heist at the Louvre last October netted €88 million in jewellery, a cascade of copycat raids has swept the continent, with thieves trading cunning for brute force and paintings for portable plunder. The pattern raises an ancient tension between preservation and access — between the fortress and the public square — and asks what a society is willing to sacrifice to keep its heritage both