The conclusion of peace in Angers, 10 August 1620 (sketch)

The settlement that ended Marie de' Medici's second armed quarrel with her son, concluded at Angers in August 1620, was negotiated on her side by her adviser, a young bishop of Luçon named Armand-Jean du Plessis. History knows him as Cardinal Richelieu, and the title came out of this peace. With the queen mother pressing his case, Louis XIII put him forward for the red hat, and in September 1622, the very year Rubens made this sketch, the pope made him a cardinal. None of that bargaining is in the picture. The museum explains that Pax, the figure of Peace, stands at its centre because this settlement was meant to lay the conflict between mother and son to rest for good.