Cinq-Mars Handing His Sword to Louis XIII

This small oil on canvas by **Claudius Jacquand**, painted around 1836-1837 and held at the royal monastery of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse, depicts **Cinq-Mars** handing his sword back to **Louis XIII** — a gesture symbolising the loss of his office as Grand Écuyer of France, whose function was precisely to carry the royal sword during ceremonies. This composition belongs to the vogue for Romantic scenes inspired by Alfred de Vigny's 1826 historical novel *Cinq-Mars*, which greatly popularised and romanticised the figure of Louis XIII's last favourite; it therefore reflects literary evocation rather than a precisely documented episode from seventeenth-century sources. Jacquand devoted several canvases to the same subject, including *The Farewell of Cinq-Mars to Marie d'Entraigues*, now held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon.