The final reconciliation between Maria de' Medici and her son, Louis XIII of France, 1622-1625

Charles d'Albert, Duke of Luynes, was the favourite who had come between Louis XIII and the queen. He died of a fever on 15 December 1621, during the king's campaign against the Protestant towns, and with him gone the two could settle their quarrel. Rubens could hardly paint a courtier's death on her walls, so he painted a monster. At the bottom a many-headed hydra, standing for dissension and rebellion, is struck down by a flying figure hurling a thunderbolt, whom the Louvre calls Courage, posed like Saint Michael in a Last Judgement. Higher up, Louis and Marie meet in open sky, she holding the caduceus, the staff of peace. The woman in green at the upper right is France. For a long time the canvas was thought to show an earlier meeting, at Couzières near Tours in 1619.