The Return of Francis I to France at the Bidassoa (1526)

This oil painting by Alexandre Millin du Perreux, exhibited at the Salon of 1808, depicts the return of Francis I to France across the Bidassoa river, which then marked the border between Spain and the kingdom. Taken prisoner following the disastrous defeat at Pavia on 24 February 1525, the king spent nearly a year in captivity in Spain before regaining his freedom under the Treaty of Madrid, signed on 14 January 1526, on particularly harsh terms. His release was secured only at the cost of handing over his two eldest sons, the Dauphin Francis and the future Henry II, as hostages, who took his place in captivity on the far bank of the river at the very moment the king set foot back on French soil, on 17 March 1526. This landscape scene, painted nearly three centuries after the events and now held at the Musée national du Château de Malmaison, illustrates a defining episode of the reign, in which the relief of the king's liberation was tempered by the bitterness of the sacrifice made to secure it.