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Navarre. 86 The reverse depicts the queen mother’s royal arms—half showing the arms of France
while the other half presents the arms of the Medici and the house of Austria—topped with a
French crown and surrounded by a cord. 87 Its legend reads: “The lilies grow while they
flourish,” which when presented with the royal arms suggests that France prospered under the
stewardship of Maria de’ Medici. 88
Tying the medals together is the foundation stone’s inscription, which states: “To the
glory of God and to the very holy Virgin his mother, Marie de Mediciz [sic] placed the first stone
of this church and monastery so that as she honors and recognizes this Mother of the king of
Kings for the conservator of the kingdom and of the royal line and for the model and example of
her life and of her name, she will also have her in heaven as a mediator of her eternal salvation,
the year of our redemption 1628.” 89 Nearly identical to the one found at the church of the Filles
du Calvaire (1625), the inscription again emphasizes the Virgin Mary’s role as the mother of the
King of Kings and the model for Maria de’ Medici’s life, establishing connections between the
queen of France and the queen of heaven. The bond is reinforced visually by the medallic
images of the two Marys, one shown reigning augustly while the other suffers her sorrows,
placed one on top of the other on the left side of the print.
By supporting a religious order devoted to St. Elizabeth of Hungary and its church
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Maria de’ Medici built on her previous patronage of ecclesiastical
architecture. In addition to continuing to promote the reforms of the Catholic faith by backing
yet another religious order, she employed imagery on the medals and used the inscription on the
foundation stone to enhance the comparison between herself and the Virgin Mary. Moreover the
queen mother drew on the similarities between her life and that of St. Elizabeth, intimating once
again that the parallels endowed her with an elevated status. Complementing these ideas were
the medallic faces showing the church’s patron and her family arms, both of which reiterated
Maria de’ Medici’s role as queen of France and matriarch of the royal family. By placing this
medal on the same foundation stone with images of the Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth of
Hungary, Maria de’ Medici explicitly aligned herself with the holy figures, equating her power
with that of theirs.
Although the medals and the foundation stone expressed the manner in which the queen
desired to be viewed, the one-time event of the placing of the first stone and its limited audience
combined with the incomplete state of the church prevented the knowledge of Maria de’
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