Medvedev Dmitriy: http://www.proza.ru/2012/08/13/1327
After rectifying the relations with the Spaniards and Germans, and wedding everyone who was afoot, Marie turned back to her royal rights, setting the duties aside. Her favorite, Concini, has lost all fear and in addition to bleeding the kingdom dry, could openly tell the young monarch off. The last one was incensed by it up to the revolution of something-hundred-seventeen, which he organized in person (1617). Along with the spring drafting, Louis XIII has summoned his captain of the guard and told him to deal with the queens’ Italian Stallion. Well, Vitry* did promise to be true to his name and just try and hospitalize the guy, in order to get the smug grin off his mug, but in the end he settled on getting the same result with a verifying kill.
On April 24th, the killer has followed through on the contract in front of half a hundred of witnesses, who escorted the empress’s lover. The guy had it coming all along, so no one could say that it was wrong. And while the king’s men kicked the still warm body across the Louvre bridge, his Majesty walked to the balcony and stated the end of his mothers’ reign with something along the lines of “Freedom!” ** Now that was just his Italian blood speaking- using the balcony as a method of communication where love affairs are involved.
The French tribe rejoiced no less than its chieftain did and with the revolutionary banners afloat took possession of Concini’s wife, Leonora Galigai, who just happened to be the queens’ foster sister. Thus, under the joined hot tempers it was decided to warm up to the lady by burning her at the stake. But the inquisition wouldn’t have any of those medieval cruelties and after naming the queens’ flesh and blood a bloody witch, they decided on the mundane practice of decapitating her, since her head didn’t seem to need any body.
“Nothing good shall come from our meeting.” Said the neck to the axe, and turned up to be right.
As for Marie de Medici herself, her son decided that there must be a reason why he’s the king of the castle, and gave her a one way ticket to the Blois. And that’s the very moment that was ordered from Rubens, as a major event in the life of the main heroine of the narrative cycle. Peter Paul made the first rough draft, on which the queen, escorted by her children, heads for the chariot. But it wasn’t obvious enough to which nursing home the sweet chariot is coming forth to carry her. So the artist scribbles along Slander above the head and Lie, spitting fire. But those companions were common inhabitants of the palace halls, and flowed above each well-born individual. Rubens made sketches of Innocence, escorting the queen and near her- a barking hound, either a Doberman or a dogger-girl (don’t ask me, I don’t know who let which dogs out). But Maugis and Richelieu came up in time to stop the artist. It’s because the initiator of the exile was Louis himself, and then it seemed that he was barking mad and was the one to lie about his innocent mother.
Until the very end of all his works, Rubens returned more than once to this canvas, adding sometimes grief in the eyes of the surrounding princesses, and sometimes mythical characters in order to clarify the details of the event***. By the end of those works, the concept changed radically and the painting got a new name: “The Felicity of the Regency”, which doesn’t quite fit with the time of the exile. In order to avoid those contradictions, also as far as the regency of the legally of age king, the creation has just shifted places with “Louis XIII comes of age”. But then it seems that the king got married before the age of sweet sixteen, but let’s not be sour about the details.
In this version, the children are reduced to babies, with the assets of varying arts. Ignorance, Obloquy and Envy lie defeated in the right corner of the canvas. The queen, led by the sounds of Glory and Rumors looks judgingly at the scales. And France looks ready to proclaim the beginning of the Golden Age, but the wise Zeus holds her back, saying “hold your horses, I know that feeble-minded girl a bit more than you do, so let’s see what she’ll pull off this time.” On the nigh side stand Minerva, Generosity and Fertility, although in this case they seem more like War, Prodigality and Giving (not of the good kind).
* Nicolas de L'Hospital, Baron de Vitry was the captain of the kings’ guard, who has killed Concini by the means of a head shot.
** Louis XIII didn’t even bother to hide his joy as he yelled to the killers: “Thank you all! From this moment, I’m a king!”
*** The sketch of “The queen leaves Paris for Blois” is kept nowadays in the Munich pinacotheque.