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protector and establishing a close connection with the order. 52 In addition, by supporting the
foundation of yet another religious institution in Paris, Maria continued to promote the reforms
of the Council of Trent. While these factors initiated the queen mother’s beneficience towards
the Filles du Calvaire, I argue that the essential reason for the support was the opportunity it
provided to counter recent actions by Louis XIII that sought to limit his mother’s perceived
authoritative reach. By including specific imagery that evoked her elevated status as the mother
of the king of France and her devotion to the French state, Maria de’ Medici challenged Louis
XIII’s attempts to curb her power.
Two years after the Filles du Calvaire’s arrival in Paris, Maria de’ Medici encouraged the
group to relocate to a piece of land adjacent to her new palace, which was then under
construction. 53 She initially gave the religious five arpents of land immediately to the west of
the Luxembourg palace, but following the advice of her architects she decided to move the
location of the convent to accommodate construction of the Petit-Luxembourg. 54 The new site,
contiguous to the former location, consisted of a triangular-shaped space with one side bordering
the rue de Vaugirard, another backing up to Luxembourg gardens, and the third next to the Petit
Luxembourg (figs. 70 and 71). In addition to donating land, the queen mother provided the
Filles du Calvaire with an annual income of one thousand livres, which along with gifts from
Madame Damours provided funds to build the convent and to sustain the religious. 55 The
construction of a new convent in such close proximity to the queen’s palace unquestionably
linked the religious institution to Maria de’ Medici.
In 1625 the queen mother strengthened her ties with the Filles du Calvaire by starting
construction of the convent’s church Notre-Dame-du-Calvaire, built by the master mason Marin
de la Vallée perhaps on the plans of Salomon de Brosse. 56 Located perpendicular to the street
with its entrance directly on the rue de Vaugirard, the building was a simple rectangular structure
with three bays (fig. 71). The choir of the religious and the cloister were added to the back of the
church, and a chapel de la reine, an oratory for Maria de’ Medici, was created in the first two
bays of the right aisle. 57 In 1631 the bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon blessed the church and
celebrated its first mass. That same year Philippe de Champaigne began work on the choir’s
retable, a commission by Maria de’ Medici featuring the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, St.
Mary Magdalene, and St. John flanked by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and a
Resurrection of Christ and surmounted with God the Father Surrounded by Angels. 58
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