The Estates-General Convened by Louis XIII, 27 October 1614

This canvas by **Jean Alaux**, a history painter active under the July Monarchy, completed in 1841, depicts the solemn opening of the **Estates-General** convened by **Louis XIII** on 27 October 1614 at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon — the last assembly of its kind the French monarchy was to hold before 1789. Painted more than two centuries after the event, this work reflects the nineteenth-century taste for reconstructing the great ceremonies of the Ancien Régime, a period when French historiography took renewed interest in the origins of national representation.