We can identify the subject of this painting thanks to a number of coeval inscriptions on the back of the stretcher frame, describing the event and the occasion of the feast day, added by one of the artist's pupils who acquired the picture in the workshop of an antique dealer in Rue Ioquelrt on 15 January 1852.

The subject depicted is the celebration of a feast in honour of King Henri IV of the House of Bourbon, known as "The Great", at the military school of La Fléche in the Department of the Sarthe, in the Pays de la Loire.

A crowd gathers in reverence before a statue of the king, the first monarch in the Bourbon branch of the House of Capet to inherit the throne of France, in 1589, who spots a laurel wreath and who is portrayed here in accordance with an iconography which frequently accompanies his image. On the opposite wall, in front of the soverign, we see a coat-of-arms bearing the initial of Henri IV in the centre together with the characteristic Bourbon fleur de lys surmounted by the royal crown. 

The canvas, which also depicts numerous cadets from the school, offers us a sample of some the most prominent personalities of the day. Among them we can identify not only the portraits of several members of the military brass – such as General Danlion (1770–1853), commander of the Military School of La Fléche from 1821 to 1839, and Colonel François Antoine de Montzey (1768–1842), commander of the Légion d'honneur, appointed second-in-command of the military school in 1819 and who held the post for ten years, retiring  in 1830 – but also a number of ranking ecclesiastics, for exampled the College Principal, Abbé Louis-François de Bigault d'Harcourt (1768–1831).

Seated in the foreground, leaning forward and dressed in white, we see Madame Abel de Colomb de Battine (1793–1869), the mother of one of the cadets, César Léopold Colomb de Battine who was born in 1811 and entered the school aged 9 with the serial number 0945, remaining there until 1826 (his presence in the painting gives us an undisputable terminus ante quem, thus we may  consider   the  picture to have been painted before 1826), and the woman portrayed in an orange dress, who is the mother of an older student .

The school was founded by Henri IV in 1603 when he gave the castle built in the 16th century by his grandmother, the Duchess Françoise d'Alençon, to the Jesuits so that they could establish a college there entitled the Collège Henri-IV, in order to select and train the best minds of their time. In the years after its foundation, and more especially after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1764, the college began to lay greater emphasis on military training and eventually became the school at which cadets from the French aristocracy were trained.

It is interesting, in connection with the inscriptions on the back of the canvas, to note that the artist's anonymous pupil refers to a specific historical event: Louis Philippe's usurpation. The "July revolution" of 1839 toppled Charles X, who abdicated in favour of his ten-year-old nephew Henri, Duke of Bordeaux and son of the second-born child of the king and of the Duchesse de Berry, and appointed Louis Philippe to the post of Lieutenant Général du Royaume, enjoining him to announce the choice of the new sovereign to the people.  

Louis Philippe, however, failed to comply with his cousin's injunction and chose, instead, to put forward his

own candidature to the throne, going on to have himself proclaimed sovereign after holding the post of regent for his under-age cousin for only eleven days.

Louis Philippe was proclaimed sovereign with the name of Louis Philippe I on 9 August 1830, also taking the title of King of the French.

Charles X and his family, including his nephew Henri, went into exile in the United Kingdom. The young former king and Duke of Bordeaux kept the title of Comte de Chambord while in exile and subsequently became the pretender to the throne of France, supported in his claim by the Légitimistes.

On the death without an heir of his uncle Louis-Antoine d'Artois, Duke of Angoulême, in 1844, Henri became the effective head of the House of Bourbon and pretender to the throne of France in every respect, with the title of Henri V.