The departure of the queen from Paris

In the spring of 1617 Louis XIII, then 15, took power from his mother and sent her away from Paris to the château of Blois. Five years later Rubens had to put that departure on her own walls, and this panel shows his first answer. The exile is staged as the work of lies. Slander, carrying a torch, presses in on the queen, and two harpies, the winged monsters of Greek myth, stand for falsehood and deceit. At her side walks Innocence, carrying a lamb. The son who actually gave the order is nowhere to be seen. The blame passes to forces with no faces, and the queen leaves as the wronged party. Even so, the subject was a sore one. The design never reached the gallery, and in 1625 a different picture was hung in its place.