Quebec would like the storied Florentine Diamond, as well as other jewels deposited secretly in a Quebec bank vault by the last Empress of Austria, to be on permanent display in the Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts.

One of the Empress’s descendants expressed gratitude to Quebec in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, saying the province took her and her eight children in when they fled the Nazis.

“We thought it was very nice (of the family) to say they were grateful for Quebec adopting them as they ran away from the war,” Catherine Boucher, attachée de presse in the office of Mathieu Lacombe, Quebec’s minister of culture, told National Post.

Boucher also shared a statement from Lacombe.

“This is a truly unique story that connects Quebec to the Habsburg family.

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