Henri III at Saint-Cloud, the Beginning of the Siege of Paris

This painting by **Arnold Scheffer**, dated 1869, depicts **Henri III** settled at **Saint-Cloud** at the moment the siege of Paris began, in late July 1589, a campaign he conducted jointly with his new ally **Henri de Navarre**, positioned at Meudon. This operation, meant to allow the king to reconquer a capital that had been in the hands of the League since the previous year's Day of the Barricades, was cut short a few days later by the king's assassination by the monk Jacques Clément. Painted nearly three centuries after the events, the work reflects nineteenth-century history painting's taste for dramatic episodes and the final moments of great reigns — here, the tragic end of the last Valois king.