La Bataille de Taillebourg, 21 juillet 1242

When the citizen-king Louis-Philippe turned part of Versailles into a museum of French history in the 1830s, he filled a long gallery with 33 vast battle scenes running from the Franks to Napoleon. Delacroix was given one of them, and it is the only picture he ever made for those walls. He chose a bridge over the Charente in July 1242, where the young King Louis IX, the future Saint Louis, broke an English-backed revolt of his own barons. Delacroix throws you into the crush at the bridgehead, horses and men tangled at the centre while Louis drives forward in gold. The canvas stands nearly five metres high.