Maria de' Medici's flight from Blois, 21-22 February 1619, 1622-1625

On the night of 21 to 22 February 1619, Marie de' Medici, the king's own mother, got out of the château of Blois, where her son Louis XIII had kept her since 1617. The accounts say she let herself down from a window by a rope ladder in the dark. The escape was organised by the duke d'Épernon, one of the great nobles of France, but he was not at Blois that night. He met her on the road near Loches with his horsemen.

A few years later Rubens painted the episode for the queen herself and kept her dignity intact. She stays composed while a crowd of servants and soldiers presses round, helmeted Minerva urges her on, Night spreads a dark cloak overhead and Dawn is already showing. One of the nobles waiting to receive her is usually identified as Épernon. The canvas belongs to the Louvre's Galerie Médicis, room 801, which closed in May 2026 so the whole cycle can be restored on the spot, work expected to take about four years.