In 2007, an important discovery was made which enabled a slew of activity to help scientists, historians and gemologists further explore the history of the Hope Diamond, as well as create replicas of the larger pieces, from which it had been cut, believed to have been owned by eighteenth-century French monarchs. A lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the gemological collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, reported in a bilingual French–English press release, and the unique finding triggered an investigation by an international team of researchers into the stone's history. It was an important event since previously investigators had to rely on two-dimensional sketches of the diamond, but now they had a three-dimensional structure with which to apply techniques such as computer-aided drawing analysis. It allowed creation of the first numeric reconstruction of the French Blue including a virtual snapshot video. Even the emblem of the Golden Fleece of Louis XV was numerically reconstructed around the French Blue, including the "Côte de Bretagne" spinel of , the "Bazu" diamond of , 3 oriental topazes (yellow sapphires), five brillants of up to brillants and nearly 300 smaller diamonds. Special care was taken to reconstruct the major gemstones precisely by using CAD analysis as well as knowledge of historical gemsetting techniques.