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 THE COURT OF
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
 BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS BY
FRANCIS GRIBBLE
MADAME DE STAEL AND HER LOVERS
*GEORGE SAND AND HER LOVERS
ROUSSEAU AND THE WOMEN HE LOVED
CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS COURT OF
WOMEN
THE PASSIONS OF THE FRENCH
ROMANTICS
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON
RACHEL: HER STAGE LIFE AND HER
REAL LIFE
THE ROMANTIC LIFE OF SHELLEY
THE COMEDY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT
ROMANCES OF THE FRENCH THEATRE
THE TRAGEDY OF ISABELLA IL
^
Popular Edition at 2s. net
 THE COURT OF
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
AND THE LATER ADVENTURES OF
THE QUEEN IN EXILE

BY

FRANCIS GRIBBLE
AUTHOR OF "GEORGE SAND AND HER LOVERS" ETC.

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1913
 PREFACE
The personality and proceedings of Queen
Christina of Sweden were the subject of passion-
ate controversy during her life and the echoes
;

of the disputation have never quite died away.

—
She has been praised as one who her heart being
touched by the divine grace — made a great
sacrifice for conscience' sake. She has also been
denounced as a monster of licence and cruelty :

a woman, who, if she did not make a practice of

murdering her lovers, at least caused one of them
to be done to death in extraordinarily barbarous
circumstances.
As a matter of fact, while, like other people,
she deserves both praise and blame, she merits
neither that particular blame nor that par-
ticular praise. On the one hand, she wore the
cloak of religion, almost to the last, with far too
jaunty an air to be mistaken for a saint. On
the other hand, the doing to death of a member
of her suite in the Fontainebleau Palace —
whether
—
one styles it murder or execution was, at any
rate, no crime passionel. Monaldeschi may or
may not have been a traitor may or may —
not have been a liar and a slanderer but it is
;

as certain as anything can be that he was not,

and never had been, a lover.
V

2082132
 PREFACE
The question has been raisec?', indeed, whether
Christina, who lias been accused of having had
so many lovers, ever really had any lover at all

the secrets of her alcove having been almost as

well kept as the secret of the motive of her crime.
She went, say her champions, no further than
flirtation with her young favourites at Stock-
holm no further than " Platonic " friendship
;

with Cardinal Azzolino at Rome. She resembled,

in short, according to that theory, the beautiful
heroine in Mr. George Moore's Celibates, who
delighted in dalliance, but was deterred by a
modesty indistinguishable from terror from yield-
ing to any man's passionate advances and she ;

kept lovers at a distance for the same reason for

which she refused to marry.
That theory cannot be formally disproved
but it is hard to believe that those who prefer it,
though they may have glanced over Christina's
Aphorisms, have read them carefully and searched
for clues. Many of them are, in all conscience,
platitudinous enough, —mere commonplaces of
worldly or religious wisdom ; but there are hints
dropped in them, whether purposely or inad-
vertently^, which rank as revelations. They are
the Aphorisms, not of an Old Maid, to whom Man
is a strange and terrible being, but of a woman

—
who has lived and loved, quite enough, at all
events, to know one side of the Rubicon from
the other. And when we place those Aphorisms
side by side with the Letters to Cardinal Azzolino,
recently printed by Baron de Bildt, the particular
vi
 PREFACE
application of the general sentiments is clear.
Christina was neither too religious nor too
intellectual for a " grand passion." She loved
the Cardinal ; and she believed, whether rightly
or wrongly, that her first love was her last, and
that her last love was her first.
We need not discuss the ethics of a maiden
lady's passion for a priest who was bound to
celibacy. It is difficult to say whether such an
affection should be judged by its affect upon

character or by first and the attempt

principles ;

to determine the vexed question would only leave

the investigator stranded on the quicksands of
perplexity. But the facts, which can, in a large
measure, be determined, are important as well
as interesting. They bring Christina into touch
with that common humanity which she aspired
to surpass by her talents and her nobility of soul.
They enable her biographer to put the dots on the
i's of Pope Innocent xi.'s appreciation " E
:

—
donna, she is a woman and behaves as such.'*
The most valuable books about Christina
are those which her countryman. Baron de Bildt,
has "written round her correspondence with
Azzolino. Biographers like Woodhead and Bain,
who wrote without access to the documents
contained in those volumes, grappled with their
subject under a heavy disadvantage. There
was a great deal which it was impossible for
them to understand, —
a great deal at which
it was only possible for them to guess. The
present biographer is deeply indebted to Baron
vii
 PREFACE
de Bildt, and acknowledges his indebtedness with
gratitude.
Practically all the rest of the available material
has been brought together in the four ponderous
tomes of Arckenholtz but the work of Arcken-
;

holtz cannot justly be said to block the way

to any other writer. It belongs to the great
category of " books which are no books," pre-
senting the characteristics of a work of refer-
ence rather than a narrative. It is imperative
to consult but impossible to read it, for
it, —
reasons which will be recognised as valid by
every one who has made the attempt.

FRANCIS GRIBBLE.
August 27, 1913.

vni
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The End of the Thirty Years War — Christina's Desire
for Peace — Her Passion for Self-Development and
own Life in her own Way — The

......
for living her
Neurosis of the North — An Ibsen Heroine before the
Letter 1

CHAPTER n
The Thirty Years War —Why Sweden joined in it

Position of Sweden in Europe during Christina's

Childhood . . . . . .10
CHAPTER HI
Marriage of Gustavus Adolphus to Marie-Eleonore of
—
Brandenburg Birth of Christina Anecdotes of her—
Infancy — Death of
Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle
of Liitzen —
His Instructions to Oxenstiern concern-
ing the Education of his Daughter Christina —
recognised as his Successor — The Regency . 18

CHAPTER IV
Christina's Childhood — Her Morbid Life with her
Mother— Her Education taken out of her Mother's
Hands — Brought up a Boy — Her Precocity
like
Her Scepticism — Her Training Philosophy
in Political 29

CHAPTER V
Coronation of Christina — Her Love of Peace — Conclusion
of the Thirty Years —
War Her Determination never
to Marry — Her own Estimate of her Sentimental
ix
 CONTENTS
I' AGE
Charactei'istics — Hei*
Romantic Attachment to her
Cousin, Charles Gustavus —
Her Breach with him
Her Romantic Attachment to Magnus de la Gardie . 4S

CHAPTER VI
Curiosity about Christina in Paris — Comments of Mme
de Motteville — Character Sketches of her — By
Chanut, French Ambassador to Sweden — By the
Jesuit Father Mannerschied Conclusions — to be
—
drawn A Girton Girl on a Throne . . 6l

CHAPTER Vn
Christina's Interest in Literature and the Arts — Her Desire
to have a Salon and to entertain Philosophers
Invitation to Descartes —Jealousy of Elizabeth, Prin-
cess Palatine — Unpleasant Experiences of Descartes
— His Death in Sweden . . . .73
CHAPTER VIII

Christina's Courtof Scholars —

Saumaise The practical —
Joke which Christina played on him His gorgeous —
—
Court Dress V^ossius, afterwards Canon of Windsor
— Daniel Heinsius and his bibulous Propensities
Nicholas Heinsius — Stiernhielm — Naudaeus — Bochart
— Nervous Breakdown — Frivolity pre-
Christina's
scribed a Cure
as — She plays Battledore and
for it
Shuttlecock with a Doctor of Divinity . .86
CHAPTER IX
Christina's French Physician, Dr. Bourdelot Practical —
Jokes played on the Scholars at his Suggestion
His Unpopularity and ultimate Discomfiture —
Christina's Quarrel with Magnus de la Gardie . 97

CHAPTER X
Bulstrode, the British Ambassador to Sweden — His
Chai'acter Sketch of Christina — His Dance with her
X
 CONTENTS
o" PAGE
— His Conversations with on various Subjects
hei*
_

She informs him of her Intention to Abdicate His —

unsuccessful Attempt to dissuade her . .107
CHAPTER XI
Christina's Conversion to Roman — Her Con-
Catholicism
fidences on the Subject to Chanut — Her Reasons for
changing her Religion — The Seed sown by Father
Macedo — The Evangelists sent from Rome —
Prolonged Argument and ultimate Conviction . 122

CHAPTER Xn
The great Renunciation— Christina abdicates in Favour
— Picturesque Details
of her Cousin, Charles Gustavus
of the Ceremony — Christina's Departure — Her
Reasons expediting
for — Attempts to detain her
it

— Across the Danish Frontier— Free to her live

own Life at last . . . . .135
CHAPTER Xni
What — Her
the World thought of Christina's Abdication
Travels — Denmark — Hamburg — Brussels — Her
private Reception into the Church Brussels at
Her Manner of Life there — Her Delight her at
Escape from Lutheran Sermons . . .146
CHAPTER XIV
Christina's public Reception into the Church at Innsbruck
— Her Journey to Rome— Her Reception and Life
there— Cardinal Colonna her vain — Roman
loves in
Society objects her Manners — Her Departure
to
for France . . . . . .159
CHAPTER XV
Christina in France —
Her Interview with Mile de
—
Montpensier Her Reception in Paris Her Meeting —
with Mazarin, Anne of Austria, and Louis xiv. at
—
Compiegne Her Attempt to induce Mazarin to
—
make her Queen of Naples Her Return across the
Mont Cenis to Italy . . . . .172
xi
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVI
TAGB
The Sojourn in Italy —The
Return to France Christina —
at Fontainebleau —
The tragic Death of Monaldeschi
— Was it a Murder or an Execution ? Was it a —
—
criwe passioncl ? Comments on the Incident by Gut
— —
Patin By Mme de Motteville By Mile de Mont-
pensier— Treason, Terror, and Nerves . .187
CHAPTER XVII
Monaldeschi's alleged Treason — Impossibility of discover-
— Details of the Execution — Done
ing the Particulars
to Death the Galerie des Cerfs — Attitude of the
in
French Court — Refusal to leave France
Christina's
in Disgrace . . . . . .196
CHAPTER XVIII
Christina's Letters in Justification of the putting to
—
Death of Monaldeschi Letter to Santinelli To —
Mazarin —
To Chanut —
Her Proposal to visit
—
Cromwell Reasons why the Proposal was declined
— Her second
— Her Financial
Visit to Paris
Difficulties ....
— Her Return to Rome
208

CHAPTER XIX
Cardinal Azzolino — His Character and Relations with his
— Christina's Financial Embarrassments
Christina
A recheixhe de
la de sous— Her Return
la piece cent
to Sweden — Her unpleasant Reception there— Her
Quarrel with the Bishop of Abo— The Threats
which she addressed to him — She shakes the Dust
of Sweden off her Feet and repairs to Hamburg . 219

CHAPTER XX
Life at Hamburg— Manifold Preoccupations— The Mrs.
Jellyby of the North— Return to Rome— Social Life
— Attitude towards the Roman Ladies
Christina's
Questions of Etiquette — Christina the Role of in
Peacemaker— Further Financial Embarrassments
Decision to pay yet another Visit to Sweden . 235
xii
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
PAGE
—
The second Sojourn at Hamburg Christina's Fears of
Assassination —
Her Manner of Life Her Corre- —
—
spondence with Azzolino Her Fears that his Piety

......
will prevent him from being her Lover
Dress Ball

CHAPTER XXII
A Fancy —
245

The second Expedition to Sweden — Christina insists upon

hearing Mass in defiance of the Law Her Priest —
—
......
ordered out of the Country She herself decides to
go too — She calls for Post-Horses and hurries back
to Hamburg 259

CHAPTER XXIII
Back at — Election of a new Pope— Christina
Hamburg
Honour of Clement — Her Windows
illuminates in ix.

broken by the Mob — The Riot quelled by her Suite

— Further Correspondence with Azzolino . . 270

CHAPTER XXIV
Christina's Candidature for the vacant Throne of Poland
— Her Motives preferring — Presumption that
for it

Azzolino grasped the Chance of getting

at of rid
her— Her own Indifference

......
the Result of the
to
Election — Her Candidature regarded as ridiculous
— Failure
Its 280

CHAPTER XXV
The Return Rome — Friendly Relations with a
to culti-

vated Pope — The Golden Age of the Pontificate

— Christina at lasther own Life
lives her own in
Way — Her Patronage of Art and Artists — Her
Academy— Her Benefactions . . . 292

CHAPTER XXVI
—
Death of Clement ix. The Conclave of 1669 Intrigues —
of Christina and Azzolino to secure the Election of
xiii
 CONTENTS
PAGB
a Friend —Their Failure —A Love Letter in the
midst of the Conclave — Election of Cardinal Altieri,
who takes the Name of Clement x. . . . 304

CHAPTER XXVII
Death of Clement x. — Accession of Innocent — xi.

Reforming Pope — Christina's Quarrels with him

— Her Objection to Sumptuary Laws — Her
his
Insistence upon the Right of Asylum Law- for
Breakers the Precincts of her Palace—The
in
Pope's Commentary on her Conduct E do7ina . 314

CHAPTER XXVIII
Christina's Years — Bishop Burnet's Description of
last
her— Her Aphorisms— Platitudes commingled in
them with individual Thoughts — Aphorisms about
Love — And about Religion — Do the Aphorisms
convey the
Azzolino? ......
Truth concerning

CHAPTER XXIX
her Affection for
326

More Aphorisms — The Light which they throw on

— Her Mysticism— Her Indifference
Christina's Life
to Death — Extracts from her Correspondence
later
— Her last
Pope, and her Death
Illness
....
— Her Reconciliation with the
339

INDEX . . . . . . .351

XIV
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Queen Christina
From a painting by
.....
Sebastien Bourdon.
Frontispiece

TO FACE PAGE
ElisabetHj Princess Palatine . . . .80
Reproduced by permission from a photograpli by Emery
Walker of Gerard Honthorst's painting, in thie National
Portrait Gallery.

Descartes. . , . . , .154
From the painting by Franz Hals, in the Louvre.

Mlle de Montpensier . . . , .194

Cardinal Azzolino ..... 220

Queen Christina
From a
......
painting by Sebastien Bourdon,
300

XV
 THE COURT OF
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN

CHAPTER I

—
The end of the Thu'ty Years War Christina's desire for peace
— Her passion for self-development and for living her own
life in her own way —
The neurosis of the North An —
Ibsen heroine before the letter

The Thirty Years War raged from 1618 till

1648. Christina of Sweden was born in the

midst of it —in the midst, as it were, of the
booming of guns and the rattling of sabres in —
1626, and grew up in a period of tumults, alarms,
and triumphs. She was not insensible of the
glory which the triumphs reflected on her reign ;

but womanhood nevertheless found her with a

deep and ever-deepening desire for peace.
Her subjects saluted her, in the Coronation
ceremony, not as the Queen, but as the King of
Sweden and she was distinguished by many
;

masculine accomplishments and qualities. She

learnt to swear as roundly as our armies are said
to have sworn in Flanders ; and she could not
only ride, but also shoot. It was said that
A 1
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
she could hit a hare with deadly aim while
riding at though tears always
full gallop,
came to her eyes when she realised that
the poor little thing was dead. But war was
not her sphere, and could not be for she ;

was brilliantly clever and alive to intellectual

and civilised ambitions. Amid
the clash of
arms, she had acquired a taste, amounting
almost to a passion, for the arts her aspiration
;

was to be the Queen, not of a rough camp, but

of a refined and polished Court.
Neither swaggering soldiers nor long-headed
politicians, that is to say, were Christina's ideal
men. She had, indeed, a natural instinct for
politics, —
she came to be almost as capable as
Louis XIV. of being her own Prime Minister but ;

her real interests were elsewhere. The society

which she preferred was that of philosophers,
— or, alternatively, that of fashionable young
aristocrats of engaging manners. So she
laboured, in the face of the opposition of the
leading Swedish statesmen, for the conclusion
of that Treaty of Westphalia which, in 1648,
not only rearranged the map of Europe, but
also gave her the opportunity —
or, at least, the

semblance of the opportunity of living her —

own life in her own way in the company of her
own friends.
Queen to whom the pride of her
It is as a
royal status was nothing if she might not live
her own life in her own way that Christina
challenges and holds attention as one of the
2
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
most interesting figures in history. She not
only put an end to a war in order to achieve
that purpose she also abandoned her throne
;

and changed her religion as steps towards its

accomplishment. The story of her life is, con-
sequently, before all things, the story of a great
renunciation and a bold experiment not the
:

less interesting because the experiment, like

most human experiments, failed to give full

satisfaction, and the exalted hour of renunciation
had its sequel in moments of repentance and
regret. Christina, aswe shall see, was not without
her share of the inconsistency commonly attri-
buted to her sex but her magnificent gesture
;

was, nevertheless, sincerely made. She was,

at the moment when she made it, an artist in
life intent upon self-expression, genuinely pre-
ferring self -development to pomp.
One admires her the more because self -develop-
ment is difficult and queens, unless
for kings
they are content to develop on conventional
lines and within close limitations. Kingship
is a specialised mode
of activity a king is
;

expected to be —and
can hardly help being
the thing for which Alfred de Musset professed
such abhorrence when his parents urged him
to become a lawyer " a particular kind of
:

man." His pleasures, as well as his duties,

are stereotyped. He is taught, from his child-
hood upwards, that he must work, and pray,
and love, and divert himself in accordance
with rigid rules and traditional expectations.
3
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
He must be, or pretend to be, a soldier, a church-
goer,and a sportsman, fond of fine clothes,
crowded rooms, and ceremonious banquets. He
may pass, indeed, from the society of a wife
for whom he does not care to that of mistresses
who do not care for him but the very grandeur
;

of his position excludes him from sincere senti-

ment and reciprocated passion. He may be a
Don Juan, but not a Galahad or a Pilgrim of
Love and his first step towards originality in
;

these or in other matters brings him up against

barriers which he cannot overcome unless he
pulls them down.
The majority of kings, it may be, do not find
the restrictions very irksome for the majority of
;

kings doubtless resemble the majority of their sub-

jects in having vulgar ambitions and commonplace
ideals. Even when such ideals and ambitions are
not quite natural to them, early habit makes them
second nature. They find it easy to dispense
with the bracing exercise of unhandicapped
competition with their equals. They find it
more comfortable to assume than to prove
their superiority to other men and it is not
;

displeasing to them to adopt towards the experts

in statesmanship and the arts, whose services
are at their disposal, an attitude akin to that
which the ordinary employer of labour takes
towards the carpenter and the plumber.
Similarly, in the matter of their amusements,
they adapt themselves, as a rule, readily enough
to the supposed exigencies of their position.
4
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Their governors have no difficulty in persuading
them that to shoot at birds is the most rational
of all kinds of human recreation, and that
to look on while horses race, and stake money
on the results of the races, is, in very truth,
the sport of kings. They find a magic in the
make-believe and a charm in the homage which
is laid at their feet without discoverable refer-

ence to their merits. So they run in grooves for

which they have been prepared, and which
—
have been prepared for them, grooves in which,
if a king has the tastes commonly associated
with members of the Bullingdon and subalterns
in the Guards, everything which the heart can
desire would seem to be provided for convenience
and delight.
But one thing has not been provided : liberty
to leave the groove, when they get tired of it,

and be themselves and live their own lives in

their own way.
That does not matter, of course, to the
typical monarch who combines a magnificent
manner with a sloppy mind and ambitions
limited to martial and material things. Such a
one asks nothing better than to be a soldier,
a sportsman, a Don Juan, and the central figure
of the pageants. Provided that his armies
do not lose too many battles, he will live and
die thanking the goodness and the grace that
on his birth have smiled ; for the education of
—
princes is chiefly directed to that end to the
comfort of the man who is, in the main, pretty
5
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
much like other men, and has the ordinary
man's disposition to take things easily, and
swagger, without undue emotional strain or
intellectual exertion.
Yet the barriers are always there, however
gorgeously they may be gilded and now and
;

again a prince or a princess has individuality

enough to be painfully sensible of them, and
to kick against the pricks, in the spirit of the
poet revolting against the destiny which has
made him, let us say, a dental surgeon or a
bank clerk. In our own days the princes
and even the princesses of —
the House of
Habsburg are continually kicking against those
gilded pricks and upon a lion's share of
insisting
the common lot : John Orth, for instance,
as did
and " Herr Wulfling," and Princess Louisa of
Tuscany. In the past the most famous cases
are those of Charles v., who descended from his
throne in order to become a holy man, and
Diocletian, who stripped himself of the purple
for the sake of cultivating cabbages.
That is the category of monarchs to which
Christina belonged. She, too, revolted against
her exalted lot in order to pursue her somewhat
different line of self-development, quitting the
position of the Minerva of the North in order to
become a wandering amateur of culture and
the arts ;and her renunciation made a far
more enduring noise in the world than did her
reign.
Both her motives and her proceedings have
6
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
been much and stormily discussed, — chiefly
because, when she renounced her title to the
Swedish throne, she also renounced the Lutheran
religion and submitted herself, as did so many
persons of culture at that period, to the authority
of the Church of Rome. Hence the conflicting
blasts blown upon the brazen trumpets of
innumerable theologians. Protestants have
written of Christina as, first, a traitor to the true
faith, and then a perverted monster of iniquity.
Catholics, on the other hand, have applauded
her as a devoted daughter of the Church, who
made a noble sacrifice for conscience' sake.
Conceiving it to be their duty to exaggerate,
they have thrown their whole souls into the
task, with the result that to trust them is
to be led astray.
Christina, as we shall see, was neither so
admirable a woman the Catholics nor so
as
despicable a woman
as the Protestants have
represented. She was, at once, more unique
and more human than the controversialists on
either side Above all, she was more
allow.
feminine and, if the word may pass, more
modern a woman, in short,, who would, in
:

many ways, have found herself in touch with

many of the modern women whom one meets
in modern drawing-rooms.
Modernity, in fact, far more than even
femininity, was the dominant note of her
personality. —
" E donna she is a woman and
behaves as such," was the phrase in which
7
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Pope Innocent xi. summed her up ; but that
judgment only contained a portion of the
truth. Christina was also essentially a modern
woman, —a
woman whom we should still
account modern nowadays, and for whose
mental and modern characteristics there was,
in her own seventeenth century, no known
precedent. "Neurotic," "neuropathic," "neu-
—
rasthenic " those are the epithets with which
her own countryman, Baron de Bildt, has,
in recent years, assailed her and if we accept
;

the adjectives as terms, not of abuse, but

of psychological definition, we may hope to
find in them the clues to a good many of the
mysteries.
It is, in short, as the first conspicuous case
of the neurosis of the —that mysterious
North
malady with which Ibsen's dramas have
familiarised the modern world—that Christina's
career arrests and enchains our interest. The
evidence which justifies the statement will
present itself, piece by piece, as the story is un-
folded ; but, when
it is given, it will be clear

that, if we are to understand Christina, and to

sympathise, and to make allowances where we
cannot approve, we must think of her as an
Ibsen heroine before the letter, placed in a
station in which her least gesture was bound
to be observed, and therefore astonishing a world
which as yet knew nothing of Ibsen heroines,
their fixed ideas, their quick and wayward logic,
their desperate impulses, and their famous cry
8
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of bitter determination, so incomprehensible
to the discipHned and orderly Latin intelli-
gence
Je veux vivre de ma vie.
With that prelude we may proceed to the
telling of the story.

9
 CHAPTER II

— —
The Thirty Years War Why Sweden joined in it Position
of Sweden in Europe during Christina's childhood

Though the Thirty Years War, in a sense,

blocks the way, no reader would thank the
writer for digressing into a history of it. The
Thirty Years War must, as far as possible, be
taken for granted though it will be better
;

to interpose a word or two, indicating the

European outlook and the position of Sweden
among the Powers during Christina's early
years.
The war, let us recall, then, was in its origin
a German war and a religious war, a war —
between Protestant and Catholic Germany; a
struggle between the central authority of the
Empire and the independent claims of the vassal
princes. Almost every other country in Europe
became, by degrees, entangled in the contest :

some of them joining in it on religious grounds ;

others for fear of the fate which might befall

them they stood aloof
if others again in the
;

hope of snatchingadvantage out of the confusion.

All the little wars of Europe became, in conse-
quence, confounded in a single war of a terribly
devastating character.
10
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
It was a war which made a clean sweep of the
national institutions of Germany and, in many
wiped out the population;
districts, practically
the non-combatants perishing in hardly less
numbers than the fighting men. If it had lasted
but a very little longer, it would have thrown
Europe back into that state of barbarism in
which the Roman legions found it in the first
year of the Christian era. A few typical figures
brought together by Professor Gardiner may
be cited to show the immensity of the ruin
wrought

"The losses of the civil population" (Pro-

fessor Gardiner writes) " are almost incredible.
In a certain district of Thuringia, which was
probably better off than the greater part of
Germany, there were, before the war-cloud
burst, 1717 houses standing in 19 villages.
In 1649 only 627 houses were left. And even
of the houses which remained many were un-
tenanted. The 1717 houses had been inhabited
by 1773 families. Only 316 families could be
found to occupy the 627 houses. Property
fared still worse. In the same district 244
oxen alone remained of 1402. Of 4616 sheep
not one was left. Two centuries later the losses
thus suffered were scarcely recovered."

Nor was that the worst. If one passes from

statistics to anecdotes, one is plunged into a
abysm of horrors. The soldiers tortured the
11
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
compel them to bring their
civilians in order to
hidden property to light. They burnt their
houses and chased the fugitives like beasts of
prey those whom they caught they stuck up
:

as targets to shoot at. One reads of starving

dogs eating men, and of starving men eating
dogs. One reads corpses torn from their
of
graves to be eaten one reads even of canni-
;

balism. In the forests of Franconia a regular

band of man-hunters was established, man- —
hunters who were ultimately caught in flagranti
delicto, banqueting round a cauldron of boiling
human flesh.
But enough random
of these horrors, picked at
from history appallingly rich in horrors. One
cites them only to show what kind of a war
it was that Christina worked to stop, without

much help from her statesmen, and in defiance

of the thunders of the clergy. For it is one of
the ironies with which the history of religion
abounds that, at a time when Europe was sick
of its sufferings and bleeding well-nigh to death,
that " voice of the churches " to which unthink-
ing people in all ages look for guidance had no
message except that the slaughter had better
continue until all the heretics were slain. On
the one hand, the Pope launched a Bull in favour
of the prolongation of the atrocities, and on
the other hand, the Lutheran pastors fulminated
from their pulpits against the peace. Arcades
ambo and one cannot better introduce Chris-
;

tina, albeit one must anticipate to do so, than

12
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
by relating how she dealt with one of her own
intolerant clergymen. Tlie story is in the
Memoirs of Chanut, the French Ambassador to
Stockholm

" The pastor of one of the Stockholm

churches " (Chanut writes) " denounced the
peace furiously from his pulpit, on the ground
that it had not secured liberty for the Lutheran
religion in theEmperor's hereditary domains,
and thundered against all Catholics, warning his
congregation not to trust them in spite of the
Treaty, but, on the contrary, to cherish in their
hearts an undying hatred against people who
spoke of them as heretics.
" The Queen, hearing of this, sent for the
pastor and admonished him so sternly that he
looked embarrassed and bewildered, and denied
having used the words which four thousand
people had heard him speak."

That at the age of twenty-two. It was

worth while to anticipate in order that our first
view of Christina might be so characteristic
but we must go back from the peace to the war
in order to see how and why Sweden came into
it in the reign of Christina's father, the gre^t
Gustavus Adolphus.
His motives, no doubt, like most human
motives, were mixed. He liad travelled through
Germany in disguise and remarked the luxuriant
beauty of the valley of the Rhine, so much —
13
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
richer than the barren lands over which he
ruled in the frozen North, —
and the vision had
tempted him. He had further remarked the
wealth and arrogance of the Rhenish prelates,
and that vision also had made its impression.
" If these priests," he wrote (speaking in the
assumed character of a Swedish nobleman),
" were subject to the King, my master, he would
long ago have taught them that modesty,
humility, and obedience are the proper character-
istics of their profession."
It was not too Gustavus Adolphus felt,
late,
to teach those prelates the lesson which they
needed. Their pride, if left unchecked, might
be a danger to him, for he held possessions on
the Prussian side of the Baltic the breaking of
;

their pride might enable him to extend those

possessions. Moreover, the extension of those
possessions would mean the spread of Pro-
testantism; and Gustavus Adolphus was as
earnest a Protestant as Cromwell, to whom he
has often been compared. So he made his
plunge, and quickly proved himself as brilliant
a soldier as Cromwell.
" We have got a new little enemy," said the
Emperor Ferdinand scornfully when he heard
that the Swedes were coming but he had
;

reason to change his tone when they came. The

Swedish soldiers were a rabble to look upon ;

but they were commanded by a man of genius

who was also an innovator in the art of war,
possessed of improved cannon and improved
14
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
muskets, and markedly the superior of his
antagonists in mobihty and in his power of
maintaining discipHne. He smashed Tilly and
marched all over Germany, winning battle after
battle, forbidding his men to plunder, and
establishing liberty of conscience. " We will
show our enemies," he said, " that we are honest
men and honourable gentlemen."
It was a meteoric career, brilliant but brief.
The end of it came, in 1632, when Gustavus
Adolphus led his army against Wallenstein's
—
entrenchments at Liitzen, a battle in which
the religious character of the war was strongly
emphasised. The day began with the singing
of hymns in which the King himself joined
lustily :
" Our God is a strong tower," and
" Fear not, little flock," and " Jesus, the
Saviour, who was the conqueror of death."
Tlien, in the interval between the issuing of the
orders and the charge, the King knelt and
prayed "In God's name, Jesus, give us to-day
:

to fight for the honour of Thy holy name." And

—
then forward, to victory, but also to death
A fog descended on the battlefield, and
Gustavus Adolphus found himself alone in the
midst of a squadron of the enemy's cuirassiers.
He went down, shot first in the arm and then
in the back. " Who are you ? " they asked
him. " I was the King of Sweden," he answered
faintly ;and then a cuirassier shot him through
the head, and the fruits of the victory
which he had gained were gathered in by
15
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Bernard of Weimar, who succeeded to the
command.
That was when Christina was six; and the
war had still a course of sixteen years to
run, —a period, as already indicated, of ever-in-
creasing anarchy and horror. There is no need
for any further recitation of its vicissitudes,
—such matters belong to history, and not to
Christina's life. One must merely insist that
the great deeds of Gustavus Adolphus gave
Sweden a place in the European Concert very
different from that which she holds to-day.
Sweden was then a Power, and one of the
greatest of the Powers for the Powers by which
;

Sweden is now overshadowed had not yet found

themselves and developed their potential
strength. Germany, as well as Italy, was little

more than a geographical expression, destined

to wait many a long day for its unification.
Russia had hardly begun to come into the comity
of nations and Poland, not yet partitioned,
;

was a thorn in the side of her neighbours. Even

with her present extent of territory Sweden
would have been more important then than now ;

and Swedish territory, as a fact, stretched a

good deal farther then than now. There was an
overseas Swedish Empire on the opposite side of
the Baltic, where now are the coasts of Finland
and Prussia.
So that Sweden counted almost equally with
—
France and Spain, a great deal of what now is
Belgium being then the Spanish Netherlands ;

16
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and that meant, of course, that Swedish states-
men, as well as Swedish soldiers, counted. Not
only did Gustavus Adolphus, at his hour,
dominate Europe almost as Napoleon was after-
wards to dominate it. His Chancellor, Oxen-
stiern, thanks to his victories, could negotiate as
an equal even with Cardinal Richelieu
Such was the condition of things, in Europe
and in Sweden, when Christina came to the
throne, —
being crowned in the year of the battle
of Marston Moor. It was beginning to be the
condition of things in the year of her birth,
which was the second year of the reign of our
own Charles i. That modicum of history is
necessary to her biographer's setting of the
stage. The stage set, he is free to go back and
tell her story from the beginning.

B 17
 CHAPTER III
Marriage of Gustavus Adolphus to Marie-Eleonore of Branden-
burg — Birth of Christina — Anecdotes of her infancy
Death of Gustavus Adolphus at the battle of Liitzen
His instructions to Oxenstiern concerning the education of
his —
daughter Christina recognised as his successor The —
Regency

The wealth of the Rhenish vineyards and the

pride of the Rhenish prelates were not the only-
things which attracted the attention of Gustavus
Adolphus during his journey through Germany.
He was also charmed by the fair face of Marie-
Eleonore, the eldest daughter of the Elector of
Brandenburg, and he married her in 1620, two —
years after the beginning of the Thirty Years
War, but some time before he himself decided
to take part in it. He
chose her, according to
Christina, because she was " the most eligible
of the Protestant Princesses of the period, to
whom his religion limited his choice " and ;

Christina added, with the detachment of a critic

rather than the affection of a daughter

" This Princess, who was not without beauty,

and possessed the good qualities looked for in
her sex, lived with the King on sufficiently
pleasant terms in a union which nothing
18
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
marred except the lack of an heir to secure
the succession."

It is faint praise and one can read a good

;

deal between the lines of it. A lack of sympathy

is indicated something more than the lack of
:

sympathy which is almost normal between the

younger and the older generations an echo, ;

evidently, of a lack of sympathy which had sub-

sisted between the husband and the wife.
Gustavus Adolphus was a great man and a
strong mana man of ideals as well as a man of
:

action. Marie-Eleonore had no endowment but

her beauty and her family connections. Per-
sonally, she was colourless and insignificant :

a silly woman who got sillier as she grew older ;

the sort of woman who would have been quite

innocently happy in a doll's house. Gustavus
Adolphus was fond enough of her in his way, but
had no illusions about her. She counted for no
—
more in his life and had no larger vision of the
—
events of her time than if he had been a
Sultan and she the favourite beauty of his
harem and she loved her husband prett}'^ much
;

as such a beauty might have loved her master.

She suffered, as we shall see, from nerves, and
became morbid to the point of eccentricity :

a point on which it is necessary to insist

when we are looking for the hereditary influ-
ences which helped to make Christina what she
became.
Christina flattered herself that she was, in a
19
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
special sense, her father's child ; and the
flattery of others confirmed her in that opinion.
In sheer cleverness, as students understand the
word, she probably surpassed her father be- :

yond question she was more variously accom-

plished. She inherited many masculine traits
—
from him some of them already indicated
and she had much of his energy, though she
expended it otherwise. But her nature had also
a nervous strain, bequeathed by a neurasthenic
mother, though she did not know it, and em-
phasised by incidents of her up-bringing of
—
which we shall have to speak, the blending of
the influences producing that brilliant example
of the neurosis of the North of which we have
spoken.
Her mother had borne two daughters before
her but they had died in infancy. The third
;

child, said the — those

astrologers for were
the days when people always inquired
what
the astrologers had to say— would be a
boy ;

and it seemed, for a moment, that they had

guessed correctly. The women in attendance
were deceived by the infant's vigour and lusty
cries. They spread the false report, and feared
that the King would be furiously angry with
them when they came back to correct it, his —
sister Catherine handing the child to him, so
that he might satisfy himself, by ocular evidence,
of the error and the grounds for it. But he
made no trouble, and even seemed quite
gratified
20
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" Let us thank God, my sister " (Christina
reports him as saying). my daughter
" I hope
willbe as good as a son to me. Since God has
"
given her, may God preserve her !

that " she ought to be clever since

He added
she has taken us all in " and Christina, relating
;

the story in her fragmentary Memoirs, goes on to

render her own thanks to God for having made
—
her of the weaker sex, albeit a virile member of
it. " My sex," she writes, addressing herself to
God, " has been Your means of preserving me
from the vices and debaucheries of the country
in which I was born " and she continues,
;

going into details

" If ithad been Your will that I should be

born a man, perhaps the habits of the country
and the example of my companions would have
corrupted me. I might perhaps have drowned
in drink, as so many others do, all the virtues and
talents which You have given me. Very likely,
too, my ardent and impetuous temperament
would have led me into embarrassing relations
with women from which it would have been
difficult for me to extricate myself. ... At any
rate, there would have been a danger that the
society of women would have taken up the time
which, having been devoted to study and the
search for Truth, has brought me nearer to You."

A curiously exaggerated manifesto of the

21
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
pride of sex, and one to which the test of
evidence shall be applied as we proceed.
Meanwhile

" The Queen, my mother, who had the weak-

nesses as well as the virtues of her sex, was
inconsolable. She could not endure me, she
said, because I was a girl and was ugly, where- —
in she told the truth, for I was as dusky as a
little Moor. My father, on the contrary, was very
fond of me and I responded to his affection in
;

many precocious ways. It seemed to me that I

understood the differences between their qualities
and their feelings, and was able to do justice to
both of them, even in the cradle."

Christina further relates that she was dropped

on the floor as a baby ; and she was fully persuaded
that she was dropped on purpose, in the belief
that her mother would be glad to hear of her
death as the result of what could be called an
accident. One has no means of judging whether
the suspicion was well founded ; one only
knows that the consequence of the fall was a
permanent, though very conspicuous,
not a
deformity. Throughout Christina's life her
dresses had to be so cut as to conceal the fact
that one of her shoulders was a little higher than
the other.
Meanwhile the King delighted in every pre-
cocious trait and, more particularly, in every
indication that his little girl had the spirit of a
22
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
boy. She tells us what happened when, as a
child of two, she was saluted by the guns of the
fortress of Calmar

" There was some hesitation because of the

fear of frightening a baby as important as I was
and the Governor, not wishing to fail in his duty,
asked what were the King's orders. The King,
after hesitating for a moment, said Fire:
'

She is a soldier's daughter, and must get used to

the sound of guns.' So the order was obeyed,
and the salute was duly fired. I was with the
Queen in her carriage and instead of being
;

frightened, as children of that age

tender
generally are, I laughed and clapped my
hands,
and, not being yet able to speak, expressed my
delight as best I could by signs, and indicated
that I wanted them to fire again. My father's
affection for me was greater than ever after that.
He hoped that I was destined to be as brave as
he was himself."

He was never to know anything about that,

however ; for Christina was only four when
Gustavus Adolphus set out on the campaign from
which he was not to return. He caused the
country and the army to swear allegiance to
her before he went and she plucked at his
;

beard to make him listen to a farewell speech

which her nurses had taught her

" When he noticed that, he took me in his

23
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
arms and kissed me, unable to restrain his
tears. Or so I have been told by persons who
were present, who also assure me that I cried
so bitterly for three whole days that I hurt my
eyes and very nearly ruined my sight which,
like his,was extremely weak. My tears were
regarded as of evil omen, as I was a child who
hardly ever cried."

Another evil omen was the cessation of the

flow of a river, believed always to cease to flow
on the eve of the death of a King of Sweden ;

and Gustavus Adolphus himself predicted his

own death in his farewell harangue

" The pitcher which goes often to the well

is broken at last. So it will be with me. I have
faced many dangers for my country's good, and
have never shrunk from imperilling my life. By
God's grace my life has so far been spared ; but
I shall lose it in the end."

And so to Liitzen, where, as we have seen, he

fell, praying, as well as fighting, hard. He fought
and prayed, from Christina's ultimate point of
view, on the wrong side ; but she was too proud of
him to despair, for that reason, of the salvation
though she felt that she must express
of his soul,
her hopes in the guarded phraseology of Rome.
" It may be, Lord," we find her writing, " that
a ray of Thy triumphant grace may have de-
scended to crown him at the last moment of his
24
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
life." And she adds, with the same sort of
piety :
" Whether that was so or not, we must
bow to Thy
and eternal decrees, and admire
just
and worship them."
That was when Christina was six. There
had, of course, to be a Regency an office which
:

was placed in commission under the direction

of the Grand Chancellor, Oxenstiern. Gustavus
Adolphus had made every provision for the
event and his instructions to Oxenstiern,
;

drawn up in the midst of campaigns, were now

produced, and showed that he had taken the
measure of Marie-Eleonore's capacity

" He bade him honour, and assist

serve,
the Queen, his wife, and try to comfort her in
her trouble, but never, on any account, to
permit that Princess to have anything to say in
political affairs, or in the matter of my education.
Those had always been his orders, and he now
confirmed them and expected them to be carried
out."

It was a wise stipulation, Christina thought

and historians have not ventured to contradict
her. Marie-Eleonore was affectionate, but
foolish ;
people liked her, but did not respect
her ; and there was a Republican party in
Sweden. was easy to persuade the Republi-
It
cans to be loyal to a helpless child it might ;

have been difficult to persuade them to be loyal

to a silly woman, reputed, rightly or wrongly,
25
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
to be as vain as she was empty-headed. So
the debate on the propriety of proclaiming a
Republic was practically closed when Christina
was taken by the hand and led into the presence
of the Assembly. Her personal likeness to her
father settled the matter

" She is his very image," they cried. " She

has the nose, the eyes, the brow of Gustavus
Adolphus. She shall be our Queen."

And with that they proclaimed her Queen,

with a unanimous voice, and set her on the
throne ; and one of her first ceremonial appear-
ances on the throne warmed their hearts to
enthusiasm.
She had to receive a Mission from Russia,
sent to negotiate for the renewal of an old treaty ;

and there were doubts whether she would

receive it with a sufficiently dignified de-
meanour. The Russians of those days were,
in appearance at all events, barbarians, horr-
ibly hirsute, and strangely and wonderfully
apparelled. A little child might very well be
frightened by them, as by Bogey Men or Wild
Men from Borneo. So the Regents implored
Christina not to be afraid

" Their want of confidence in me hurt me ;

and I asked them indignantly : What is there

'

to be afraid of ? '
They told me that the
Russians were dressed quite differently from us,
26
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that they had long beards, that they were terrible
persons, and that there were a great many of
them, but that I must not be frightened. It so
happened that the Ministers with me on that
occasion were the Grand Constable and the
Grand Admiral, who, themselves, wore long
beards. So I laughed, and said : Suppose they
'

—
have beards what of that ? You have beards,
and I am not afraid of you. Why should I be
afraid of them ? Tell me what I have to do,
and leave the rest to me.' And I kept my word.
I received my visitors, seated on the throne,
in the customary manner, with a demeanour
so self-possessed and majestic that, instead of
being frightened, as other childre-n are, on similar
occasions, I made the Ambassadors feel what
all men feel when they are brought in contact
with the great and my subjects were delighted,
;

and admired my manner, as people admire

every trifling trait on the part of children whom
they love."

That was in 1633, when Christina was seven.

We may allow for a little exaggeration but ;

the story at least shows us that Christina, like

her mother, was vain, though she was not vain
of the same things. She was no less proud of
having been a great queen than of having
forsaken grandeur for the sake of independence
and self-development. But that is to anticipate.
Our immediate business is with Christina's
meeting with her mother.
27
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Marie-Eleonore had accompanied Gustavus
Adolphus on his campaigns and now, in 1633,
;

she returned to Sweden, bringing his coffin with

her. " I kissed her," Christina writes. " She
shed floods of tears, and nearly stifled me in
her embrace." And then there were memorial
services and sermons ; which sermons were
" harder to bear than the King's death," for
which, as nearly two years had passed since it
occurred, Christina was already consoled.
And then began that education which was
to be one of the influences helping to make
Christina a neurasthenic.

28
 CHAPTER IV
Christina's childhood — Her morbid life — Her
with her mother
education taken out of her mother's hands — Brought up
like a boy — Her precocity — Her scepticism — Her training
in political philosophy

There was no affectation in Marie-Eleonore's

grief, — if it was hysterical, it was also sincere.
Itmight almost be said that she was in love with
sorrow as some women are in love with love.
There are two classes of shallow persons, those —
who are callous, and those who lack the power of
self-control and Marie-Eleonore was of the latter
;

sort. A funeral was as welcome an emotional

occasion to her as a wedding, a memorial service—
as welcome an emotional occasion as a funeral.
Two years after her husband's death she was
still revelling in the luxury of woe, refusing to —
look forward to the responsibilities of the years
to come, —
prolonging lamentation with the ob-
stinate intensity of the neurotic.
She demanded that Gustavus Adolphus's
body should lie in state in a Stockholm church,
in a place where she could always see it. She
had his heart enshrined in a box and placed at
the head of her bed, so that she could weep
before it daily. The Senate and the Clergy
29
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
feltthat they must interfere if only for the sake
of her peace of mind but even so their trouble
;

with her was not ended. She stormed and

screamed at the proposal to deprive her of the
charge of her child and her Ministers yielded,
;

for a time at least, to her unceasing supplica-

tions. Christina's own period of mourning was
over, —she was only eight, and two years seem
an eternity at that age but her mother never-
;

theless took her to live in a palace as lugubrious

as a mortuary chapel

" As soon as she arrived, she shut herself

up in her apartment, which was draped with
black hangings from the ceiling to the floor.
The windows were covered with curtains of
the same dark material. We could hardly
see there ;and the wax candles which burned
there by day as well as night revealed only
the symbols of her mourning. Day or night,
she never ceased to weep. ... I had the
highest respect for her and her tender affection ;

but I felt sorely troubled and embarrassed when,

in spite of my tutors, she insisted upon mon-
opolising me. .There were some disputes
. .

with the Regents on the subject but they ;

allowed her to do as she liked for some time,

in view of their great regard for her, feeling that,
as she had been excluded from the Regency,
this indulgence was her due. She loved
. . .

me very tenderly, saying that I was the living

image of the late King but the very force of
;

30
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
her love reduced me to despair. She made me
sleep with her, and never let me out of her sight.
It was with the greatest difficulty that she could
be persuaded to let me have a room to myself
in which to learn my lessons."

Whereupon Christina, looking back upon her

education, and moralising upon it, comments

"But You, Lord, turned the weaknesses of

the Queen, my mother, to my advantage. The
constraint and embarrassment which I felt in
her society increased my zeal for study, and
so were the cause of the great and astonishing
progress which I made. For study was my sole
pretext for escaping from the Queen, my mother,
and from the melancholy apartment for which
I conceived so violent a distaste."

She adds an anecdote which further illu-

strates the indiscretion of her up-bringing. Her

mother pressed her to drink wine and beer,
beverages of which she detested the taste,
as children of her age so often do. Water was
actually withheld from her and then she
;

refused to drink anything at with the obsti-

all,

nacy of a hunger-striking suffrage- seeker. In

the end she took to drinking the dew which
was collected for her mother to use as toilet
water, raiding it secretly every day after dinner.
The toilet water was missed and Christina was
;

spied upon, and caught and whipped

81
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" The Queen-Dowager " (Christina comments)
" had many good quahties ; but she had none
of the quahties which are necessary for a
reigning sovereign, and it was impossible for her
to teach me the things which she did not know."

Marie-Eleonore, showed herself as

indeed,
silly a woman in her amusements as in her

methods of education and Christina was quite

;

as eager to escape from them as from the over-

whelming pageantry of woe

" The Queen-Mother liked to surround her-

self with jesters and dwarfs, as is the fashion
in Germany. Her rooms were always full of
them. It was intolerable to me ;for I have
always had a perfect horror of these ridiculous
freaks. So I was delighted when lesson-time
called me to the schoolroom. There was never
any need to put pressure on me. I went to
my lessons with unimaginable joy even earlier
than the appointed time, and studied for six
hours in the morning and another six in the
evening, taking holidays only on Saturdays
and Saints' days."

Such were the scenes in which Christina

passed her impressionable years, — roughly
speaking from her eighth until her tenth birth-
day :a morbid home from which she escaped
only to work (if she does not exaggerate) twelve
hours a day. The foundations of a neurotic
32
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
character could not have been more surely laid.
It is not surprising that the Regents presently
realised something was wrong, and put
that
their heads together in earnest debate to con-
sider what had better be done, —
moved thereto,
not only by the eccentricities enumerated, but
by others also. For in spite of her mourning,
which she seemed anxious to prolong for ever,
Marie - Eleonore was both extravagant and
proud. She clamoured for money at a time
when all the resources of Sweden were needed
for the expenses of the war and she also
;

demanded that two members of the Council,

under whose authority Gustavus Adolphus had
placed her, should be required to wait on her at
table.
That was too much for them. In particular,
it was too much for the haughty Grand
Chancellor, Oxenstiern, who had now, in 1636,
returned from Germany. At his instance,
therefore, the question of carrying out to the
which Gustavus Adolphus
letter the instructions
had given was formally posed and the course
;

of the discussion was uncomplimentary, as well

as unfavourable, to Marie-Eleonore

"It necessary for the young Queen to be

is

educated in royal virtues. This cannot be done

while she is with the Queen-Dowager. There-
fore she must be separated from her."

"It is better to stem the brook than the

c 33
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
flood. The general welfare is the supreme law.
I vote for the separation."

" We often see parents, out of love for their

children, send them away for their benefit.
Even monkeys do so with their young."

" Wehave left the young Queen with the

Queen-Mother in the hope of some improve-
ment but things get worse and worse.
;

Christina is brought up, if not in actual bad

habits, at least not in such a way, or among such
men, as she ought to be. Neither fear of God
nor love of her country is instilled into her mind,
nor is she taught the duties of government.
She must, therefore, be taken away from her
mother."

Such were a few of the typical sentiments

expressed some of them less discourteous than
:

others, but none of them positively cordial or

respectful. Marie-Eleonore, from the point of
view of the Council, was not only a silly woman
and a bad mother, but also a bad patriot. So
they put her aside by a unanimous vote, and
took Christina's education into their own hands.
From the age of ten onwards, she was to be
educated strictly on the lines which Gustavus
Adolphus had prescribed. What those lines
were she herself tells us

" The King had enjoined them to educate me

34
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
as a man, and to teach me everything that a
prince ought to know, if he is to reign worthily.
He declared emphatically that he did not wish
me to be inspired with any of the characteristic
sentiments of my honour
sex, except in so far as
and modesty were concerned. For the rest, he
wished me to be a prince, and to receive the
instruction which is proper for princes."

A system which, Christina says, suited her

perfectly, and enabled her to develop on the lines
most natural to her

" My personal inclinations seconded his

designs in the most marvellousmanner for I ;

had an unconquerable antipathy to all women's

sayings and doings. Women's clothes and
women's ways were alike insupportable to me.
I never wore their head-dresses. I never took
any care of my complexion, my figure, or my
person generally and, save in the matters of
;

cleanliness and honourable conduct, I cherished

a profound contempt for everything appertaining
to my sex. I could not endure dresses with
trains, but much preferred short skirts, especi-
ally in the country. I was so clumsy at all kinds
of needlework that it was quite impossible to
teach me how to do it. But, on the other hand,
I was marvellously quick at learning languages
and lessons of every kind."

She was hardy, too, as well as clever ; or, at

35
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
all and made believe to
events, she tried to be,
be. She could ride and handle the weapons of
sport and war. She could dispense with sleep,
and did not care what she ate she was in-
;

different to heat and cold she was fond of

;

horses and dogs she took long walks, and

;

nothing could tire her

" The gentlemen and ladies in attendance on

me were made desperate by the way in which I
tired them out. I gave them no rest either by
day orby night ; and when my ladies tried to
dissuade me from living such a fatiguing life, I
laughed at them, and said *
If you are feeling
:

sleepy, go to bed. I have no need of you.'

There are not wanting those who have in-

ferred from the boyishness of the girl and the
subsequent mannishness of the woman that
Christina was, in actual physiological fact, a boy
in petticoats but that is nonsense which may
;

safely be ignored. No motive existed for the

deception though a motive might be found
;

for the opposite pretence that the girl was a boy.

The autobiography is, throughout, feminine, if
not womanly; and there are medical proofs
—a physician's daily reports on the state of
Christina's health —which remove all possible
doubt.
The doubt, could only have been
indeed,
entertained in an age in which exceptional as
well as normal women acquiesced, as a matter
36
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of course, in the well-defined, old-fashioned
limitations of womanly activity, accepted,
without a murmur, their confinement to the
domestic sphere, or only revolted against it,
if they did revolt, in order to become poly-
androus. From the point of view of later
ages, —
from the point of view, in particular,
of a Girton-going, suffrage - seeking, hockey-
playing, hunger-striking generation, —Christina
is intelligible enough. To such a generation
neither her intellectual nor her athletic interests
present any mystery. It can understand her
temperament —
which more presently as
of —
well as her tastes and it may be supposed to
;

know something also of those avenging nerves

through which sex is apt to reassert its claim
to a consideration which it has not received.
We must think of Christina, therefore, in her
youth at all events, as a sort of tomboy, who
was also exceedingly clever, devoured by an
intense curiosity to know whatever there was
to be known and we must picture her educated
;

somewhat as girls are educated at the Bedford

College for Women, —
but without any sort of
home life, and without any girl companions.
She was taken away from her mother when she
was ten. Her aunt who, in some degree but —
—
only in a slight degree, was allowed to take her
mother's place, died when she was thirteen.
Slie was not then allowed to return to her
mother and Marie-Eleonore, indignant at
;

what seemed to her the denial of her natural

87
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
rights,shook the dust of Sweden off her feet, and
paid a long visit to Denmark. Thereafter and—
—
perhaps even before that date Christina's educa-
tion was almost entirely in the hands of men.
They naturally did not teach her to cook, or
to embroider tapestry, or to sing, or to play the
harpsichord ;they did not even teach her to
do her hair prettily, or to be the best-dressed
woman in Sweden, or to protect her complexion
with cosmetics. On the contrary, they taught
her to ride, to shoot, to hunt, and even to swear ;
and in the schoolroom they forced her, as
children are forced nowadays when everything
seems to depend upon their passing difficult ex-
—
aminations, endeavouring to make her, prema-
turely, a theologian, a linguist, and a political
philosopher.
The programme was drafted by the Nobles
and Clergy when she was nine. A letter which
she wrote when she was ten shows that no time
had been lost in carrying it into execution

" We, the undersigned, promise and bind

ourselves hereby to speak Latin with our tutor
in future. We made the promise before, but we
did not keep it. Henceforth, with God's help,
we will do as we have promised and we will,
;

God willing, begin on Monday. In order that

there may be no doubt about it, wx have written
this letter with our own hand, and we sign it.
" Christina.
" Given at Stockholm, October 28, 1639." '
38
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
It may not have been the best kind of
—
education for her, it was too purely intellectual,
and it left too little to Nature but it was a kind
;

of education which she liked, — in which she may

almost be said to have revelled. And she was
—
a credit to her instructors, they would have
thought very highly of her at the Bedford
College for Women, or even at Girton, or Newn-
ham, or Somerville Hall. She saluted her
troops, on horseback, like a soldier, and sus-
tained the role by twirling an imaginary mous-
tache. She mastered an incredible number of
languages : French, German, Italian, Latin,
and, ultimately, Greek. She read Livy, Terence,
Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus, and even Polybius and
Thucydides ; and she could write both the dead
and the living languages as well as read
them.
Her theological tutor was the only one of
her instructors who had any reason to be dis-
satisfied with her. Though she learnt what he
taught her, she was indisposed to take every-
—
thing for granted, especially when she found
that the mysteries of dogma were wrapped in
clouds of uncertainty quite different from those
which enveloped the obscure points of grammar.
She was very indignant when she failed to
get plain answers to her direct questions
concerning the details of the programme
for the Day of Judgment. She suggested
that, as these matters could not be pro-
perly explained to her, there might be some
39
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
mistake about them ; and then there was
trouble

" He administered a severe rebuke, saying

that it was an awful and an act of impiety-
sin
even to entertain such thoughts, and that, if ever
I said anything of the sort to him again, he would
ask my governess to birch me."

Whereupon Christina, according to her own

account, replied with dignity

" I promise not to say anything of the sort

again but I am not going to be birched. If
;

anything of that kind is done to me, you will all

be sorry for it."

" I said that," she concludes, " with such a

queenly air that he trembled before me,"
which may, or may not, be true.
There was no similar trouble, however,
and no need for any equivalent reprimands, at —
the hours given to the study of politics. That
subject was taught to Christina by the Grand
Chancellor, Oxenstiern, himself and, if she was
;

to be instructed in such matters at all at such a

tender age, she could not have had a better
tutor. He was possibly the ablest, and certainly
the most honest, statesman of his period. Twice,
in the course of that Thirty Years War, to
which we are continually being brought back,
he had saved the fortunes of Sweden when they
40
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
seemed at a low ebb once immediately after
;

the death of Gustavus Adolphus, and then

again after the disastrous battle of Nordlingen.
He had resisted all attempts to bribe and corrupt
him he had negotiated with Cardinal Richelieu
;

on equal terms he had been addressed by the

;

King of France as " my cousin."

Of his policy andconduct of the war we
his
will say what needs to be said presently for ;

the moment, we will only consider him in the

character of Christina's tutor. Day after day,
from the time when she was ten, or a little more,
he came daily to her schoolroom to talk to her
about politics and contemporary history, and
train her in statecraft teaching her to speak
;

" "
of " my " armies, my " victories, " my
policy, — and then, by a natural transition, of
"my " greatness and " my " glory. Never, one
imagines, has so young a Queen been so coached
in her royal duties and responsibilities by so
great a man, before or since for Queen Victoria
;

was much older when Lord Melbourne rendered

her similar services, while Isabella of Spain was
in the hands of men of far inferior capacity
and influence. Christina's own account of the
lessons may fittingly conclude the record of her
education

" I took the keenest pleasure " (she writes)

" in hearing him There was no other
talk.
lesson, and no amusement, which I did not
gladly leave in order to listen to him. He, on
41
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
his part, if I may say so without doing violence
to modesty, took the greatest pleasure in
instructing me. We often spent three, or four,
or more hours together. More than once this
great man had to express his admiration for
a child in whom You, O Lord, had implanted
such talents, such a desire to learn, and such an
—
aptitude for learning, qualities which he admired
without understanding them, for they are very
rare at such a tender age."

Whence it seems clear that, if Oxenstiern

helped Christina to become brilliant, he did not
prevent her from becoming vain and, indeed,
;

it would have been hard for her to help being

vain when, at the age of thirteen, she was

allowed to attend Cabinet Councils and give
her opinion on the highest matters of State.

42
 CHAPTER V
Coronation of Christina— Her love of peace — Conclusion of the
Thirty Years — Her determination never to marry
War
Her own estimate of her sentimental characteristics — Her
romantic attachment to her cousin, Charles Gustavus — Her
breach with him — Her romantic attachment to Magnus
de la Gardie

In 1644, when she was eighteen, Christina was

crowned and permitted to dispense with Regents.
They flattered her by proclaiming her " King " ;

but would be pedantry to speak of her other-

it

wise than as Queen. No one has ever done so.

E donna. Everybody felt that, though it was
left to the Pope to say it. For her contem-
poraries, as for posterity, Christina's sex was
much too interesting a fact to be ignored.
Womanly or not, she was conspicuously femi-
nine ;and it was because she was a woman
that she was hailed as wonderful the marvel- :

lous Minerva of the North, and also its Queen

of Sheba, to whom the great scholar and divine,
Bochart, compared her in an epigram which
may be rendered thus
" Two Queens — no more —have earned immortal fame :

From distant quarters of the world they came.

Of one's renown the Holy Scriptures tell
The other 'neath the polar star doth dwell.
43
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
'Tis idle further to prolong the verse,
Asking whose praise 'tis worthier to rehearse
The one came far a learned King to meet
But scholars group them at the other's feet."

That was written later, however, after

Christina had formed her Court of Divines and
Scholars. She began to make herself interesting
to Europe by forming it very soon after her
Coronation, but not quite immediately. For
the moment she had other preoccupations :

foreign wars and internal troubles. Apart from

the Thirty Years War, there was a " little war "
with Denmark and there were also difficulties
;

about the collection of the taxes. Tlie Nobles

held that it was contrary to their dignity to be
taxed ;and the Clergy maintained that they
could not part with money without impairing
their spiritual usefulness. In the view of both
these Estates of the Realm, the proper people to
pay taxes were the peasants and the farmers,
who, on their part, murmured against the ex-
actions, and were too poor to find, under any
pressure, as much money as the war required.
To some extent, no doubt, war, in those days,
supported itself ; victory being followed by
plunder. In the Thirty Years War, however,
plunder ceased to be profitable most of ;

the available oranges being sucked quite dry.

Glory and territory, of course, could be gained ;
but both were barren. Though Sweden, on the
whole, did well, and the hour of emergency
generally brought forth the man —Baner, and
44
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Jacob de la Gardie, and Torstensen, and other
brilliant generals — one reads of mutinies because
the pay was in arrears, and of Swedish soldiers,
while marching from victory to victory, obliged
to barter their arms and accoutrements for
bread.
—
Horrors apart and there is no need to repeat
—
the tale of horrors the sooner such a war was
ended, the better even for the victors and it
;

stands to Christina's credit that she saw further

than her soldiers, her clergy, and her statesmen,
and pressed for peace. The soldiers wanted
war because war was their diversion as well as
their trade the clergy wanted it because their
;

dogmas were at issue, and their skins were not.

Oxenstiern would seem to have had for this
particular war something of the affection of a
parent for a favourite child. But Christina
had a woman's intuition that the war was a
nuisance, and was doing no good to anybody ;

and she had character enough to put her foot

down, and insist that it should be stopped.
We may skip the details enough that
;

Christina, young as she was, not only withstood

her Ministers to the face, but also intrigued
behind their backs, and got her way. Peace
with Denmark was concluded, in 1645, when she
was nineteen and peace with all the Powers
;

involved in the Thirty Years War was arranged

by the Treaty of Westphalia, signed, in 1648,
when she was twenty-two. Then Sweden got a
badly needed breathing-time, and Christina was
45
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
free for other thoughts besides those which
public anxieties inspired : free to estabhsh
herself as the Northern Goddess of Wisdom,
and form her Court of Scholars, inviting the
wise men of all countries to come and worship
her ; free also to admire, and be admired by,
younger and more tender and attractive
courtiers. Broadly speaking, she gained her
—
freedom or a portion of it just about the —
time when she was old enough to use it and ;

—
her individual activities scholarly, sentimental,
—
and religious began simultaneously, or nearly
so, though we must treat them separately in
order to avoid confusion.

Christina was to be, like our own Elizabeth,

a Virgin Queen but that does not imply, any
;

more than it implied in Elizabeth's case, that

sentiment was to play no part in her life. On
the contrary, Essex and the others were to have
their analogues in her career and her own ;

view was, not that her temperament was cold,

but that her self-command was great. She puts
it thus

" My
ardent and impetuous temperament
inclined me
to love, not less than to ambition.
To what disasters might not this inclination
have brought me, if Thy saving grace had not
employed my very faults for my correction !

But my ambition, my pride which made me

incapable of submitting my will to that of
46
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
another, but inspired me with scorn for every-
body and everything, have preserved and pro-
tectedme and I owe to Thy grace the dehcacy
;

and refinement which have been my safeguards

against desires fraught with so much peril for
Thy glory and my happiness. However near
I approached to the precipice, Thy all-powerful
hand held me back and prevented me from
falling. Thou knowest that, whatever envy and
slander may say, I am innocent of all the secret
sins with which they have charged me in order
to blacken my character. I solemnly declare
that, if I had not been born a girl, the tendencies
of my temperament would assuredly have caused
me to lead a shockingly disorderly life but ;

Thou hast made me prefer honour and glory

to pleasure. You have guarded me from the
disasters and temptations to which that ardent
temperament of mine and the opportunities
of indulgence which my position commanded
exposed me. If I had felt myself too weak
to resist temptation, I should have married
but I trusted Thy grace, and the strength which
Thou hast given me, and, finding that I could
dispense with even the most legitimate pleasures,
I did not attempt to overcome my unconquerable
aversion to marriage."

With more to the same effect, —the con-

packed with repetitions, has been
fession, being
abbreviated and the inference which it is
;

most natural to draw from it is hardly that

47
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
which Christina intended. The combat which
it depicts between the temptations of sex and the

pride of virtue is not very convincing and it is ;

the less convincing because it was written at a

time when Christina was living with a Roman
Cardinal in circumstances which gave calumny
a handle. Not only may she be supposed to have
written as she did because she wished to defend
the Cardinal's reputation as well as her own.
One also finds something characteristically neu-
rotic in her desire to represent herself as at
once the chosen daughter of the Church and
a woman who might have rivalled Messalina
if she had followed the promptings of her
nature.
A woman who has in her the making of a
Messalina does not, as a rule, find the idea of
marriage repugnant nor is it normal for a
;

woman to whom the idea of marriage is repug-

nant to proclaim herself a potential Messalina.
What the conjunction of the two boasts really
suggests is that the imagination rather than
the temperament was ardent and that
;

the ardour of the imagination was linked

with nervous coyness and apprehensions. On
no other psychological assumption can we ex-
plain the three salient facts : that Christina
declined marriage in general, as well as in
particular, with the obstinacy of a woman
affirming a principle above and beyond dis-
cussion that she lived without " grand pas-
;

sions " that she nevertheless had (or gave

;

48
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the world good reason to believe that she had)
lovers.
Love, in fact, would seem to have been for
her a matter of the imagination rather than the
senses; of infatuation rather than passion. It
was more important to her that men should
understand her than that they should desire
her she was far more responsive to flattery
;

and sympathy than to ardour. Hence the hold

obtained by an agreeable priest, who was also
a man of the world, upon a heart which had
been scared by the adventurous advances of
his juniors. In the presence of those advances
Christina's case was somewhat like that of the
child on the seabeach, easily lured a little way
into the water, paddling joyously in the shallows,
but terrified by the aspect of the first big foaming
wave. For such, sometimes, is the neurosis
of the North, — especially when the intellect
has been overcultivated.
But, at first, Christina did not know herself,
she had to find herself out by degrees, as we all
must, if we can. It may be questioned, indeed,
whether her comprehension of herself was ever
quite complete and, in her childhood and her
;

youth, it was inevitably imperfect. Like other

children, she acquired such self-knowledge as
came to her by experience and by experiments ;
and so we find her, at a reasonably early age,
engaging in experimental love affairs.
At the age of seventeen she was in love with
her cousin, Charles Gustavus, the son of her
D 49
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Aunt Catherine. They had been boy and girl
together, —
one knows the sort of first love that
propinquity engenders in those impressionable
years. The need for romance is felt and ;

the romance which smiling circumstances offer

seems unimaginably romantic. Passion has
—
nothing to do with it, the imagination is its
single source. And then the years pass, and
the imagination strays, and contact with new
realities pulls it up, and the first romance,
ceasing to seem romantic, dies away, albeit
leaving certain sentimental memories behind it.
It was thus —
or very nearly thus —
in Christina's
romance with her cousin.
A love letter remains to show us how very
romantic the romance was at its hour. Charles
Gustavus was at the wars and Christina wrote
;

thus to him on January 5, 1644

" Beloved Cousin, — I see by your letter

that you do not venture to trust your thoughts
to the pen. We may, however, correspond
with all freedom, if you send me the key to a
cipher, and compose your letters according to it,
and change the seals, as I do with mine. Then
the letters may be sent to your sister, the
Princess Maria. You must take every pre-
caution, for never were people here so much
against us as now ; but they shall never get
their way, so long as you remain firm. They
talk a great deal of the Elector of Brandenburg,
but neither he, nor any one in the world, how-
50
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
ever rich he be, shall ever alienate my heart
from you. My love is so strong that it can only
be overcome by death, and if, which God forbid,
you should die before me, my heart shall remain
dead for every other, and my mind and affection
shall follow you to eternity, there to dwell with
you.
" Perhaps some will advise you to demand
my hand openly but I beseech you, by
; all that
is holy, to have patience for some time, until
you have acquired some reputation in the war,
and until I have the crown on my head. I
entreat you not to consider this time long, but
to think of the old saying, *
He
does not wait
too long who waits for something good.' I hope,
by God's blessing, that it is a good thing we both
are waiting for."

It is a letter to be read carefully, for every-

thing proper to love's young dream is contained
in it :the secret engagement the surreptitious
;

correspondence ; the vow of eternal fidelity

the appeal to Higher Powers. And the sequel,
too, was in accordance with the rules. Jove,
as we know, " laughs at lovers' perjuries "
and Jove was soon to be given cause for
laughter. Christina grew older, and, realising a
little more of the world about her, realised

that there were other men in the world

besides Charles Gustavus, and that Charles
Gustavus was not the very gentle, perfect knight
she had imagined.
51
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
In the first place, Charles Gustavus was not
handsome he was ugly, dumpy, thick-set,
;

" common," as we should say, and not in-

appropriately nicknamed " the little burgo-
master." In the second place, Charles Gustavus
was coarse in his tastes and habits a valiant
:

soldier who in war, but, in modern

rejoiced
phraseology, " beefy " and " beery " man.
a
In the third place, Charles Gustavus was not " ex-
clusive in his affections," but capable of consol-
ing himself for Christina's absence in the arms of
the maids of the inns. So that it is not long
before we note a change in the tone of the corre-
spondence

" Do not take it ill that I owe it to myself not

to let anything in the world disturb my peace."

"Do not fear that the expression of your

me as a proof of your
feelings will displease :

regard they are pleasing to me, so long as you

keep them within the bounds which are pre-
scribed by your cousin and friend,
" Christina."

That is how she was writing a couple of years

or so after the date of the love letter just quoted
and " love letters " would assuredly be the
wrong term to apply to the later communi-
cations. Exactly what change in Christina's
feelings they indicate it might be hard to say.
One might pick phrases from them to suggest
52
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that she mistrusted herself, —doubting her
power to respond to this passion which found
embraces of her rivals, the
satisfaction in the
—
chambermaids, mysteriously fearing she knew
not exactly what, —stiffening her attitude in order
to keep her pride in being. But there was also
another reason why her constancy broke down.
Young Magnus de Gardie — General Jacob de
la
la Gardie's son —had now come into her life.

Young Magnus was young and brilliant

attractive in all the ways which Charles
in
Gustavus was unattractive — and of a very good
family. His mother, the beautiful Ebba Brahe,
of the family of Tycho Brahe, the astronomer,
could boast that she had jilted Gustavus
—
Adolphus himself, not without reason. That
Christian warrior was no St. Anthony in the
presence of temptation and Ebba, learning
;

that he had yielded to temptation and diverted

himself with a mistress while paying his court to
her, make allowances or listen
declined to to
arguments, but threw him over as summarily as
ifhe had been one of the humblest of his subjects.
Then she married the general and now her son, ;

who had inherited her good looks, stood high in

Christina's favour.
How high one cannot say for certain but ;

one of the first uses which she made of her royal

prerogative was to push his fortunes without
much regard to his merits, endowing him with great
estates, and sending him as her Ambassador to
Paris, where wdcked tongues wagged maliciously
53
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" He spoke of his Queen in terms so passion-
ate and respectful that it was easy to suspect

in him a feehng more tender than that which he

owed to her as a subject. Some say that,
. . .

if she had followed her own inclination, she

would have married him.'*

So writes Mme
de Motteville ; but what she
—
writes is gossip the record of an impression
nothing more. One must set beside it the report
of the French Ambassador of Stockholm

" The Queen's love occupies only a portion

of her heart. It does not affect her conduct,
except perhaps in delaying the affection which
the dictates of reason bid her conceive for Prince
Charles Gustavus."

Even the Ambassador, however, wrote as an

observer, not yet as a confidant and we must ;

make what we can of the situation in the light of

—
the evidence, and of the lack of it. There is ample
—
proof of infatuation, there is no proof whatever
that Christina, as Baron de Bildt puts it, " passed
the Rubicon." There is ample proof, too, that
the infatuation was largely accountable for
Christina's sudden coldness towards Charles
Gustavus. She told Charles Gustavus so in
later years and Whitelocke, the British Am-
;

bassador, received information to the same

effect from a Swedish Senator, who spoke of
*'
the whisperings of Magnus de la Gardie to the
54
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Queen that, when the Prince was in Germany,
he was too familiar with some ladies." His
intimacy with his sovereign must assuredly have
been close, if he could breathe such suggestions in
her ear at a time when she was only twenty-one
and he was only twenty-five and nothing is
;

more credible than that he should have swag-

gered in Paris on the strength of that intimacy,
dropping hints and encouraging inferences.
But that is no reason why we should draw
the inference which he encouraged. Magnus
de la Gardie may have boasted, he may have —
felt sentimental in the act of boasting but that
;

is all. He married the Queen's cousin, Charles —

—
Gustavus's sister, with the Queen's approval.
Ultimately, as we shall see, he quarrelled with
Christina and it will be time enough to consider,
;

when we come to the quarrel, whether his

language, under that ordeal, was that of a
wronged lover or of a snubbed courtier. In the
—
meantime we must note what is significant
that this infatuation of Christina's, like all the
infatuations except the first, was concurrent
with vows of celibacy.
For, of course, the question of marriage
could not, in her case, be evaded, but had to
be faced and settled. The ecclesiastics of her
kingdom represented to her that celibacy was
" inconvenient " though whether they meant
;

inconvenient to the individual, or to the State,

or to both, is not quite clear. The succession,
at any rate, had to be secured and, to that
;

55
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
end, various suitors were proposed : suitors from
Denmark, from Germany, from Spain, from
Poland, from elsewhere. Even our own Charles
II. sent his portrait, though he was not en-

couraged to follow it in person ; while Philip

IV. of Spain took such a matter-of-fact view of
the negotiations that he invited Christina to
—
choose between himself and his son, only to be
suppressed by the announcement that he must
become a Lutheran before his proposal could
even be laid before the Queen.
None of the courtships went so far that
any kind of story arises out of them. The only
suitor who had ever had a chance was Charles
Gustavus and he had ceased to have a chance.
;

At one time his suit was opposed by the clergy

on the ground that marriages between cousins
were undesirable. When they withdrew their
—
objection which the mere fact of its with-
drawal sufficiently proves to have been hypo-
—
critical Christina had changed her mind and;

now the infatuation for Magnus de la Gardie

had intervened ; and the infatuation had been
attended by the revelations already referred to
concerning Charles Gustavus's proceedings with
the maids of the inns in Germany.
It is said that she would have married Magnus
de la Gardie if Oxenstiern had not told her that
he was, in fact, her natural brother the son
:

of Gustavus Adolphus and the beautiful Ebba

Brahe. It is possible that Oxenstiern may have
—
said this, it is possible that he may have told

56
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the truth : those who Hke simple solutions
may be tempted to seek in this discovery the
explanation of Christina's revolt against the
idea of matrimony. Her first lover unfaithful,
and her second an impossible husband because
the connection would be incestuous, that, no —
doubt, would have been a combination cal-
culated to shock a woman of her temperament
into celibacy. The view may derive some
support from the story told that, on the day of
Magnus de la Gardie's marriage to her cousin,
Christina said to the bride "I give you one
:

I maynot take myself." There is a further

indication which might support it in an enig-
matical passage of a letter written to Magnus
de la Gardie by Christina at the time of the sub-
sequent quarrel

" You have yourself betrayed a secret which

I had resolved to keep all my life, by showing
that you were unworthy of the fortune I built for
you,''''

The secret thus indicated may have been the

secret of Magnus de la Gardie's birth, which —
Christina may have had from Oxenstiern who —
may have known it but one cannot be sure. There
;

is no real evidence one way or the other and, ;

in any from marriage

case, Christina's aversion
impresses one as temperamental, and not as
the outcome of any particular disappointment :

the result of excessive mental development at

57
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the expense of the physique and the emotions.
At all events she began to express that aversion
early, and never ceased expressing it until the
end. " How fine that is I will be of that
!

religion," she exclaimed as a child, when told

of the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the
merit of virginity. At the age of twenty-two
it pleased her to play in a masque in which she

sustained the role of Diana, and broke Cupid's

bow and arrows in pieces. Towards the end
of her life she had a medal struck with the in-
scription : "I was born, lived, and died free."
She told the French Ambassador that she
would rather die than marry and she left
;

behind her several aphorisms in which the

married state was held up to contempt and
ridicule. For instance

" One needs more courage to expose oneself

to the misfortunes of marriage than to face
those of war. I admire the nerve of those who
marry ; but people enter into this terrible
contract, as they do so many other things in the
course of their lives, without realising its signi-
ficance or the engagements to which it commits
them."

" Socrates used to

say Whether you
:
'

marry or refrain from marrying, you will be

sorry.' For my own part, I think that every
one who marries will infallibly be sorry but ;

I see no reason why any one should be sorry

58
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
for not having married. I speak from ex-
perience."

How much (and how little) she meant the

further story of her life may show. She certainly
did not mean that she hated, and would always
hate, all men because one or two men had
treated her unkindly. On the contrary. The
first infatuation was not to be, by any means,

the last and it was women, not men, whom

;

Christina always professed to dislike " in the

lump." She liked men, she used to say, not
because they were men, but because they were
not women. But still
—
She would not marry, nothing should induce
her to marry. Marriage implied subjection,
she would give no man rights over her rights :

which she once compared (using a coarse meta-

phor) to the peasant's right over the land which
produced his crops. Least of all would she
accord that right to a man like Charles Gustavus,
who, in his genial, beefy, beery way, claimed the
same right over other, base-born women, for —
all the world as if he were a peasant possessed of

several plots of land. Her soul rose in rebellion

against the thought. And yet — one comes to
a gentler feminine touch
She was grateful to Charles Gustavus as her
partner in the beginnings of her
tentative
sentimental life. He had taught her what she
knew of love he had touched her heart, though
;

he had behaved unworthily. She owed him

59
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
something, and she would pay her debt. Though
it was for her own sake, not for his, that she

—
meant to remain single, still she would name
him the heir to her throne, and do what she could
to induce her counsellors to accept the nomina-
tion. And so, after much parleying, it was
arranged.
The advantage was not very obvious to
him. There was no talk, as yet, of abdication
and, Christina being his junior, Charles Gustavus
had no right to expect that he would live to
come into his inheritance. So he sulked, and
played the common comedy of the jilted lover,
making melodramatic vows. He would shake
the dust of Sweden from off his feet. Life
having nothing more to offer him except the
chance of death, he would quit his royal rank,
take an assumed name, and serve as a soldier
of fortune in a foreign army, etc. etc. But
when the comedy failed to produce the desired
impression, he ceased playing it, and accepted
his privileged position for what it might be
worth.
And Christina remained single ; and our
next task shall be to draw the picture of her
Court, as contemporary observers saw it.

60
 CHAPTER VI
Curiosity about Christina in Paris — Comments of Mme de
Motteville — Cliaracter sketches of her: By Chanut,
French Ambassador to Sweden By the Jesuit, Father
;

—
Mannerschied Conclusions to be drawn A Girton Girl —
on a throne

One Thirty Years War was

of the effects of the
an entente between Sweden and France. We
have already seen Oxenstiern negotiating with
RicheHeu, who, being a statesman and a French-
man first, and a Cathohc and a Cardinal after
wards, favoured the Protestant cause in the
material interest of his country. That was when
Christina was a child and the interview which
;

then took place at Compiegne has no great

bearing on her biography. Magnus de la
Gardie's mission was another matter. He cut
such a dash as no SAvedish Ambassador had ever
cut before he swaggered and looked soulful
;

when he talked about his Queen. Whence

Paris, with its Athenian curiosity about all new
things, began to be curious about Christina
and tongues at the French Court wagged
freely. Mmede Motteville, Anne of Austria's
lady-in-waiting, is our principal authority for
the gossip.
We have already quoted from her the rumour
61
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that Christina would have liked to marry her
Ambassador, " but that the greatness of her
soul would not permit her so to degrade herself."
She also circulated a good many other rumours,
not all of which hang together. There was the
rumour, for instance, that Christina was " a
libertine," and the opposing rumour that " she
had neither the beauty nor the natural inclina-
tions of a woman," and that, " instead of making
men die of love for her, she made them die of
shame." Even the great philosopher Descartes,
it was whispered, died of shame because " she
did not agree with his system of philosophy."
Her letters, moreover, were remarkable for " the
gallantry of her thoughts and the elegance of
her style," even when she wrote in French,
"which language, as well as several others, she
knew intimately." With the result that

She was credited with all the heroic virtues,

*'

and was ranked with the most illustrious women

of antiquity. Every writer's pen was employed
in her praise and it was said that the most
;

advanced sciences were for her what the needle

and the spinning-wheel are for others of her sex.
But fame is a great talker, and often goes beyond
the limits of the truth."

The gossip shows us, of course, not what was

true, but only what people were saying. All
that it really proves, indeed, is that curiosity
had been awakened, and that already, at the
62
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
age of twenty, Christina was a personage.
People in general, and the Court and the Minis-
ters in particular, wanted to know about her ;

and there was an obvious way of finding out,

to apply to Chanut, the French Ambassador in
Sweden. So Chanut was instructed to send
Christina's portrait; and he sent, together with
the portrait, which Christina readily provided
for the purpose, a kind of character sketch, or
—
anecdotal photograph, "doing" Christina, as
modern royal personages sometimes consent to
be " done," as a Celebrity at Home, in a really
fine example of early society journalism.
Chanut had not, he said, presumed to
" stare " or to pay too particular attention to
Her Majesty's beauty ; but he nevertheless
began with a general appreciation of her manners
and personal appearance

" The expression of Her Majesty's counten-

ance, whatever may be passing in her mind, is
always serene and agreeable ; though it is true
that, occasionally, when she is displeased with
what is said to her, clouds, as it were, gather on
her brow, to the alarm of those on whom she
fixes her gaze. Her voice, as a rule, is soft and
low, —
a voice which, however firm her utterance,
is unmistakably that of a girl. Now and again,
without apparent cause, she adopts a tone
rather louder than is usual with her sex ; but
she soon, and insensibly, relapses to a more
ordinary modulation.
63
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" Her Majesty's height is a little below the
average but this would hardly have been
;

noticeable if she had worn the high-heeled shoes

which women generally wear. She does not,
however but, in order that she may be able to
;

go about the Palace, or to walk, or to ride, more

conveniently, she only wears shoes with a sole
and a little black heel, like those of a man."

There a faint suggestion here of an untidy

is

woman slopping about in slippers and neat-

;

ness, as we shall learn from other witnesses, as —

we have, in fact, already learnt from her own
confession, — was not
one of Christina's charac-
teristics. Chanut, however, does not, for the
moment, insist. The matter is not without im-
portance to him he cannot, as a Frenchman,
:

be blind to such shortcomings in his considera-

tion of a woman, —
even if she be a woman of
genius ;but he feels that he must first dwell
upon those unique gifts and accomplishments
which have aroused the curiosity he has been
called upon to gratify. People want to know
whether Christina is religious, he will tell —
them. So far as he can judge, she has " a loyal
attachment to Christianity " but she does not
;

make any great public display of it. She views

the theological bickerings of hostile sects with a
toleration which almost amounts to indifference ;

and the elaborate ceremonies of Lutheran public

worship obviously bore her.
—
They always bored her, so much so that she
64
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
used to take her pet spaniel to church and play
with it during the prayers, and was some-
times seen reading Virgil during the sermon ;
but the Am^bassador does not give those details.
He says, instead, that Christina appears more
interested in philosophy than in theology and ;

he goes on to applaud her achievements in the

domain of scholarship

" She speaks Latin, French, German, Flem-

ish, and Swedish and she is learning Greek.
;

Learned persons converse with her, in her

leisure hours, of all that is most abstruse in the
various sciences. Her intellect, eager for all
kinds of knowledge, seeks information about
everything. Hardly a day passes without her
—
reading Tacitus, an author whom she calls her
game of chess, and whose style is absolutely
intelligible to her, though perplexing to many
of the erudite."

But not only in the study that she excels ;

it is

she also shines in the Council Chamber, and not —

only shines, but exercises real influence

" Some people, it is true, attribute the defer-

ence of her INIinisters to the fact that she is a
woman, believing that the attraction of her sex
compels involuntary submission to her will but ;

the truth is that her great authority is due to her

great qualities, and that a king who evinced the
same qualities would wield an equal influence."
E 65
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
As for her social graces

" She hardly ever speaks to the ladies of her

Court, for her addiction to sport and her interest
in affairs of State leave her no time to engage in
small talk with them. She does not seek their
society they only pay her formal visits
; and
;

then, after the interchange of the ordinary

civilities, she leaves them to themselves in a
corner, and turns to converse with men."

And even the men have to be on their metal.

If they have nothing to say which is worth
listening to, Christina " cuts the conversation
short." So that high thinking is really the
order of the day and high thinking is an
;

impediment to other occupations for which

room should be found in every well-ordered
life. High thinking deprives Christina of her
sleep, —she is in bed, as a rule, for no more than
five hours out of the twenty-four, though she
gets so tired that she has to lie down for an hour
or two after dinner and high thinking is finally
;

—a French reporter was bound to get back to

that —an impediment to the toilet and to the
arts of coquetry

" She attaches very little importance to the

—
adornment of her person, her division of the
day assigns no time to her toilet. It takes her
only a quarter of an hour to dress and, except
;

on occasions of great ceremony, she merely

66
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
runs a comb through her hair and sticks a bit
of ribbon in it. Untidy hair, it is true, does not
suit her badly ; but she cares so little for her
complexion that neither in the sun, nor in the
—
wind, nor in the rain neither in the town nor
in the country — does she ever wear either hat
or veil. When she goes riding, a hat with
feathers in it is her only protection from the
weather ; and no one who saw her in the hunt-
ing field, in her Hungarian riding-habit, with a
man's collar round her neck, would ever take
her for a queen. Unquestionably she carries
—
this sort of thing too far, there are times when
one fears that it may be injurious to her health ;

but all these little eccentricities are as nothing

when one thinks of her love for honour and
virtue. Her great ambition, one may justly
say, is to achieve fame through her personal
merits rather than by her conquests ; and she
would rather owe her reputation to herself than
to the valour of her subjects."

Such is the picture drawn by an admirer

whose admiration was genuine, but not un-
critical, in 1648. One may supplement it with
another picture drawn, five years later, by the
Jesuit, Father Mannerschied, the Spanish Am-
bassador's confessor. For him Christina is " a
prodigy and one of the incomparable marvels
of our age." He knew the Queen well, he says,
and he will set down nothing which he has not
seen with his own eyes. So he speaks of her
67
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
broad brow, her piercing look, her aquiline nose,
and proceeds to draw his picture

" There nothing feminine about her except

is

her sex. Her voice, her manner of speaking,

her walk, her style, her ways are all quite mas-
culine. I see her on horseback nearly every
day. Though she rides on a side-saddle, she
holds herself so well and is so light in her move-
ments that, unless one were quite close to her,
one would take her for a man."

He continues like the a paragraphist of

Society paper his next paragraph dealing with
;

Christina's indifference to gorgeous apparel

" Her riding-habit is a very cheap affair. I

doubt whether can have cost more than four
it

or five ducats. At Court,

too, she is always
very quietly dressed. I have never seen her
wear any ornament of gold or silver in her hair
or round her neck, nor is there any gold or
silver embroidery on her clothes. In fact, her
only article of jewellery is a ring. Nor does
she 'make up.'- Her hair is only dressed once
—
a week, at times only once a fortnight. On
Sundays she devotes only half an hour to her
toilet, —
on weekdays only a quarter of an hour.
Often, when conversing with her, I have
noticed that her chemise was splashed with ink ;

and I have sometimes remarked that her linen

was torn. Wlien she is reminded that she
68
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
really ought not to be so careless, she replies
that she leaves that sort of thing to people who
have time for it."

Then follows a paragraph concerning her

way of life
" She only allows herself three or four hours'
sleep, going to bed very late, and getting up very
early. For eighteen months at a stretch she
has done with as little as three hours' sleep a
day. As soon as she is up she devotes five
hours to reading. It is a penance for her to
have to dine in and when she dines
company ;

alone she is barely half an hour at table. She

drinks nothing but water, and is never heard to
criticise her food or to remark that it is well or
badly cooked. . . .

"... Her mornings are devoted to public

affairs, and she regularly attends the meetings
of her Council. One morning,
in spite of the
fact that shehad been bled, she spent five hours
at a Cabinet Council and when she was suffer-
;

ing from a fever which lasted for a month, she

nevertheless continued, all the time, to attend
to public business. God, she says, has intrusted
to her the government of her kingdom ; and
she will discharge the task to the best of her
ability, in order that, even if she is not always
quite successful, at least she may have nothing
to reproach herself with."

All public affairs, Father Mannerschied

69
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
continues, pass through her hands. She settles
everything in person, and needs no prompt-
ing when she harangues Ambassadors while
;

" great generals, at whose names Germany

trembles, stand mute and intimidated in the
presence of their Queen." She also reads all
the Treaties and State Papers, and explains
them in Latin to those who do not understand
them ; and she is cosmopolitan in her sym-
pathies, " loving all nations, and esteeming
virtue wherever it may be found," and dis-
tinguishing only between good people and bad
people without reference to their nationality.
For the rest
" She cannot endure the idea of marriage.
Nothing can induce her to give herself to a
husband because, as she says, she was born free
and intends to remain so. In ordinary conversa-
tion she is of such an easy familiarity that no
one would take her for a great lady, not to say
a queen. She is the first to accost those with
whom she wishes to converse, running up to
them, taking them by the hand, and laughing
and chaffing with them. And yet she inspires
so much respect that many men feel as shy with
her as if they were children. . . She has maids-
.

of-honour at her Court because the exigencies

of pomp require her to do so but she takes
;

little notice of them, and only converses with

men."
" She can converse with them," the chronicler
70
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
concludes, "in no less than eleven languages ;

she has invited learned men to her Court from

all parts Europe, and treated them with
of
great and nothing is wanting to
liberality ;

her perfection except that she should forswear

the Lutheran and adopt the Roman Catholic
religion."

That change of spiritual allegiance was

imminent when the Jesuit wrote, as the Jesuit
had reason to know and the causes of the
;

spiritual crisis (if crisis be the right word for it)

shall be examined in their proper place. Before
coming to that, however, we must pause and
consider what the two character sketches which
we have analysed amount to, and see if we
cannot characterise in a more modern manner
the woman whom they portray.
We shall, perhaps, best realise Christina if we
picture a typical prodigy of the Bedford College
for Women, and Girton, withdrawn from her
natural environment to take her seat on a
throne, proud to the point of vanity of her
elevation, zealous to show herself equal to it,

zealous, above all things, to show that a woman

could be a match for men on their own ground,
— yet clinging to the intellectual interests which
were more to her than pomp and power, and
resolved, so far as might be, to reconstitute the
old Girton life in the midst of the frivolities of
the Court ; accepting the new duties without
abandoning the old occupations ; continuing to
71
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
play the old games and to burn the midnight
oil as before preferring the society of professors
;
y
to that of the Smart Set working double tides
;

in order to find time for everything which she

keenl}^ desired to do.
She desired, no doubt, among other things
to flirt and one hardly knows whether to
;

regard her successive infatuations as reliefs to

the nervous strain or as additions to it. But
she was, in any case, living at high pressure,
living on her nerves, —living in the way which,
unless the physical constitution be marvellously
strong, inevitably leads to nervous breakdown.
We shall see, moment, how the nervous
in a
breakdown occurred and the physician inter-
vened but we must first fill in the details of the
;

pictures drawn by the Aixibassador and the

Jesuit, and show how the gathering multitude
of the professors transformed Christina's Court
into something resembling an Oxford Common
Room.

72
 CHAPTER VII
Christina's interest in literature and the arts — Her desire to
have a salon and to entertain philosophers — Invitation to
Descartes — Jealousy of Elizabeth, Princess Palatine — Un-
pleasant experiences of Descartes — His death in Sweden
Christina's interest in art, literature, and ideas
was not awakened or encouraged by any corre-
sponding interest on the part of her subjects.
The records of lier reign may give the impression
of a Renaissance but the culture of her Court
;

was exotic. Sweden, when she came to the

throne, had neither art nor literature, nor any —
desire for either. At the most it had only a
certain —
amount of learning, the monopoly of
theologians. But Swedish tastes, and Swedish
habits, were coarse Sweden, in its general
;

attitude towards culture, was a Martha, not a

Mary.
Gustavus Adolphus had, indeed, to a certain
extent, prepared the way for better things.
He had founded a Swedish University, and
looted German libraries in order to fill its book-
shelves. Some of his officers, following his
example, had founded schools and colleges. A
rudimentary grammar school knowledge could
be acquired in the country, — but little more.
Languages, living and dead, could be learnt
73
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
there, but not science or philosophy, unless —
one is to count theology as such. So Christina
began, as we have seen her beginning, with the
study of languages and it was only because
;

she was an exceptional woman, and not at all

like the generality of the Swedes, that she went
farther. Her case, in short, was like that of
a precocious child in a crass Philistine house-
hold eager to learn, but not thought much the
:

more of for that by any one except her teachers,

— suspected even by some of them of being "too
clever by half."
Just as such a child, however, infallibly seeks
and finds a sympathetic friend outside the crass
Philistine circle, so Christina found a sympa-
thetic friend in the French Ambassador, whose
account of her we have just read a cultivated :

amateur who might just as easily have been

a man of letters as a diplomatist. Modern
English diplomatists of whom he reminds us are
the first Earl of Lytton, Sir Rennell Rodd, and
Mr. Bryce. A modern French analogue is M.
Jusserand. From the Ambassador Christina got
her first glimpse of the great world of culture
beyond the Swedish border for he knew in the
;

flesh the m^en whom she was beginning to know

from their books. He told Christina how they
talked ;and she learnt from him what a French
salon could be like.
And the talk of a French salon differed from
that of the Swedish Court as the talk of an
Oxford Common Room differs from that of the
74
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
commercial room Birmingham hotel.
in a
Christina realised the difference, most likely —
—
her imagination exaggerated it, and was moved
by the ambition to shine in the sort of society
which the Ambassador depicted. What was
the use, she asked herself, of being a queen if

she could not do so ? She could, and would ;

and her friend, the Ambassador, must help

her.
He was her confidant in other matters too.
She seems to have told him, before she told any
one else, that she was tired of the nuisance of
royal pomp and of the prosy Lutheran religion,
—
with its pretentious prayers and above all its —
interminable sermons. But those were later
confidences. first confidence was to the
Tlie
effect that shewanted to meet the clever people
who wrote the clever books that, as she could
;

not visit them, she wanted them to visit her ;

that, Swedish scholars were uninteresting,

as
she would like to be put in communication
w4th foreign scholars. She relied upon M.
Chanut for that he knew the right people,
:

— would he make out a list ?

That is how the interchange of courtesies
between the Queen and the scholars began.
The Queen wrote flattering letters the scholars;

rejoined with eulogistic Latin epigrams the ;

Queen rewarded them for their epigrams with

generous gifts and invitations to stay with her.
Not all of them accepted the invitations some ;

of them made excuses. The journey was too

75
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
long ;the Swedish cHmate was too severe
they had married wives, etc. But several came.
We are told that, at one time, Christina had as
many as twenty foreign scholars hanging about
her Court, to the intense annoyance of native
noblemen, to whom scholarship was doubly
odious because it was an imported grace,
and foreigners were doubly detestable because
Christina gave them public appointments as
librariansand curators of museums.
The most distinguished of the visitors and —
—
the most warmly recommended was Descartes.
He was a particular friend of Chanut's, and not
at all the kind of philosopher whom women call
" musty " or " snuffy." He knew his manners,
having been a military officer in his time, and was
not only a deep thinker, but also a ladies' man.
Before he became the favourite philosopher of
the Queen of Sweden he had been the favourite
philosopher of Elizabeth, Princess Palatine,
that interesting blue - stocking granddaughter
of our own James i., who ultimately became an
abbess and a mystic. Though he certainly was
—
not the lover of either of them being a middle-
aged gentleman of irreproachable behaviour he —
was the innocent cause of an unmistakable
display of feminine jealousy.
When Christina first wrote to him he had
already been, some time, Elizabeth's
for
philosophic adviser.Elizabeth was in exile,
an unfavourable turn of the wheel of fortune
during that Thirty Years War which pursues
76
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
us everywhere having driven her parents from
their kingdom Bohemia. She was living at
of
The Hague, a prey to melanchoHa, and Descartes
had been soothing her, for six years or so, with
the comfortable consolations of philosophy :

setting her difficult problems in the higher

mathematics, and discussing with her such
matters as the freedom of the will, the immor-
tality of the soul, and the proper place of the
emotions in a sane philosophy of life. It was
very beautiful and perfectly innocent friendship ;
but the lady and the philosopher do not seem
to have taken quite the same view of it. His
—
heart was capacious, he was willing to shine
anywhere with the magnificent impartiality of
the sun ; she wished him to be satisfied with
shining in Holland and on her. So, when
Christina wrote to him, a little rift within the
lute was opened.
Just as Descartes had put problems to
Elizabeth, so Christina put a problem to
—
Descartes. She wanted to know her age being
—
then twenty whether the abuse of hatred or
the abuse of love opened the door to the more
perilous possibilities. Slie not only wanted to
know, but also wanted the philosopher to come
all the way to Sweden in order to tell her. It
seemed to Descartes a perfectly natural, but to
Elizabeth a most unreasonable, request. She
did not actually ask him to stay, but she hinted
her desire with maidenly indirectness; while he,
on his part, was deaf to her hints, and showed
77
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that,though he was a ladies' philosopher, his
incomparable powers of abstract reasoning had
not enabled him to read a woman's heart.
His idea was that, as he was equally admired
by two brilliant ladies, he ought to bring the two
brilliant ladies together. He thereforeshowed
Christina a number of letters which he had
written to Elizabeth, singing Christina's praises
in Elizabeth's ear

" hear of her " (he wrote) " inspires me

What I
with such esteem for her that I feel that you and
she would be worthy to converse together and, ;

as there are so few other people in the world who

are worthy of either of you, I think it might not
be difficult for Your Highness to form a close
friendship with her, —
a consummation which
would not only be agreeable to Your Highness,
but seems desirable on various grounds."

So badly do abstract thinkers blunder when

trying to think out concrete problems compli-
cated by factors undreamt of in their philo-
sophies. For, of course, —human
nature being
—
human nature, Christina wanted Elizabeth in
Stockholm as little as Elizabeth wanted to go
there. Each of them wanted Descartes to
herself and Descartes had to choose between
;

them. He was so obtuse, and so susceptible to

flattery, —and they, on their parts, were so
delicate and indirect in their dealings with him,
that he never guessed either that Elizabeth was
78
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
sulking or that Christina was triumphing. But
so it was.
His to Christina shows how com-
first letter

pletely his eyes were dazzled by the distinction

bestowed on him

" Madam, —
a letter had come to me from
If

Heaven, and I had seen it fall from the clouds

with my own eyes, I could not have been more
surprised, or have received it with more respect
and veneration than the communication which
Your Majesty has deigned to send me inspires.
I feel myself so little worthy of the expression of
thanks contained in it that I can only accept it
as a favour and an act of grace for which I shall
always owe Your Majesty a debt which I shall
never be able to pay."

Et cetera the writer of the letter being a

;

middle-aged philosopher, the most distinguished

of his time, and the recipient a girl of twenty.
And, at the same time, Descartes was writing to
Elizabeth, telling her that he was about to write
to Chanut, who would doubtless show his letters
to Christina, and announcing his intention of
" putting in them something which will suggest
to her the desirability of seeking the friendship
of Your Highness, —
unless, of course. Your High-
ness formally forbids me to do so." And so,
after certain delays, to Sweden, whence he
promptly wrote to Elizabeth " neither that
change of air nor change of climate " could
79
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
diminish his devotion to her, and assured her
that he had lost no time in labouring at his
great project of uniting in the bonds of cordial
friendship the two princesses who wer£ already
united in the bond of a common affection for
himself.
He saw Christina twice, and then he wrote

" She has allthe virtue and more than the

merit which common report attributes to her.
The generosity and dignity displayed in her
smallest actions are combined with a gentleness
and a goodness of heartwhich compel all the
friends of virtue who have the honour of ap-
proaching her to devote themselves exclusively
to her service."

And then followed what was intended to be

the master-stroke

" One of the first questions which she asked

me was whether I could give her news of you,
and I allowed no affectation to hinder me from
setting forth my high opinion of Your Highness.
I had remarked her magnanimity, and was sure
that she would not be jealous, just as I am sure
that Your Highness will feel no jealousy in
reading my account of this great Queen's
sentiments."

It was very well meant, but it was very

foolish,
—" so like a man," as women readers will
80
/mill njicunJifiatry S/etxutly ^cnvtnorif^
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
probably add : violating the unwritten law that
a man must always moderate his enthusiasm
when praising one woman to another. Nothing
is less surprising than that Elizabeth continued

to sulk. Her temper can hardly have been

improved by the next letter, in which Descartes
—
spoke of Christina's studies, the very same
studies into which he had once initiated Eliza-
beth,— announced that he was on such terms
with Her Majesty that he could venture to
" speak his mind to her quite freely," and
related her most tactful consideration for his
uncourtierlike tastes. He was exempted, he
said, from ceremonial attendances at levees, and
was only received in informal, but frequent,
audiences, tete-a-tete. " That," he concluded,
not considering what pain his words might give,
— " is just what suits me " ; and then comes
a reference to the probable duration of his
sojourn

" After all, in spite of my great veneration

for Her Majesty, I do not think I am likely to
be detained in the country after next summer.
Still, I can make no promises about the future,

but can only assure Your Highness that I hope to

remain always," etc. etc. etc.

Christina had triumphed ; and there is no

reason whatever forsupposing that she was
indifferent to the triumph. The triumph may
very well have been the more irritating to
r 81
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Elizabeth because Descartes, remembering the
days when he had been a military dandy,
attired himself for the journey as if for conquest
in other fields than those of intellectual strife.
A friend, who saw him off, was much impressed
by the magnificence of his appearance and
apparel : his carefully curled wig, his pointed
shoes, and his richly embroidered gloves ; his
easy air of a polished man of the world,
" a courtier dressed for the part." One needs
the description in order to understand the
exclamation of the pilot of the vessel in which
he landed in Sweden when Christina questioned
him about his passenger *' Madam, it is not a
:

mere man that I have brought you, it is a —

demi-god."
Descartes had never, it would seem, embellished
—
himself to that extent for Elizabeth, who was
several years Christina's senior ;and we may
take it that the sudden transformation did not
pass unobserved by her. We may take it, too,
that her observation of it was one of the reasons
why she sulked, and is, partially at least, ac-
countable for the veiled malice of her reply to
the letter quoted.
—
She is not jealous, she protests, not in
the least. How can she help but admire " a
—
person so accomplished " one who " acquits
our sex of the charges of weakness and im-
becility preferred againstit by the pedants " ?

No doubt she will soon prefer the Cartesian

philosophy to those linguistic studies to which
82
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
she appears, so far, to have confined herself.
It is really wonderful that she should be able to
find time for philosophy as well as for politics,
pursuits so different and so exacting that either
of them might reasonably be expected to mono-
polise a student's attention. As for the polite
references to herself

" I attribute them solely to her desire to

oblige you by giving you the opportunity of
exercising that virtue of charity which you have
displayed on various other occasions and I ;

have to thank you for my place in her good

opinion which place I shall preserve the more
;

easily because I shall never have the honour of

being known to Her Majesty otherwise than
through the account which you give of me.
Still, I am
capable of one act of disloyalty
against her, and am glad that your extreme
veneration for her is not going to compel you to
spend all the rest of your life in Sweden."

—
more than feminine, it is feline. Eliza-
It is
beth writes as if she had had to resign to a
rival,not a professor of philosophy, but a lover.
Perhaps she had at least lost a man whom she
loved, though she had been too modest to tell
her love, and he had been too exclusively
intellectual in his interests to suspect it ; but, if

there had been any tragedy of that sort, as the

dark hints thrown out behind the veil of reticence
would seem to indicate, the curtain was about
83
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
to fall on it. Descartes's sojourn in Sweden was
to be brief ; and a very few words will suffice to
tell all that there is to be told about it.

Plis first experiences of Christina'sCourt

were a little disconcerting. His gorgeous ap-
pearance—brilliant as that of a bird of Paradise
—caused his tastes and talents to be misappre-
hended. Summoned to Stockholm to discourse
of the mysteries of metaphysics, he had no
sooner arrived than he was invited to dance in
a ballet, organised to celebrate the Peace of
Miinster. He excused himself, but consented,
under pressure, to write lyrics for the divertisse-
ment. If we could picture Herbert Spencer, at
some modern Court, thus sihuffling in the shoes
of Mr. Adrian Ross, —
and shuffling in them,
as might be expected, very clumsily, we should —
be helped to realise the situation. There were
those about the Court who considered that the
commission to write those lyrics should have
been theirs ; and they did not fail to make
disagreeable remarks.
Christina, however, had time for philosophy
as well as for levity ; and it was a further trial
to Descartes that she selected a very inconvenient
hour for her lessons in that important subject.
She was, as we know, an early riser and it ;

was at five o'clock in the morning that he had

to attend in the library and instruct her. That
was not only an affront to metaphysics, but
also a nuisance to the metaphysician, who, since
leaving the army, had always lived a life of
84
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
ease, and loved his bed. The season was the
late autumn, when the mornings, in northern
climates, are very dark and very cold. Des-
cartes shivered over his duties for a couple of
months, and then caught inflammation of the
lungs and died of it.

It was Chanut who had the painful task of

communicating the news to Elizabeth and her
;

reply was to the effect that she wanted her letters

returned to her. The Ambassador protested, but
the Princess insisted. They were in no sense
—
compromising letters, Chanut wanted to pre-
sent them to Christina, who, " moved by the
spectacle of virtue unaffected by jealousy,
would be very glad to be confirmed in the
singularly high opinion which she has formed
of the character of Yoiu- Royal Highness " ;

but that was the last argument by which Eliza-

beth was likely to be moved. She had pro-
tested that she was not jealous ; but she was.
Her philosopher had been taken from her but ;

the letters should not be taken over with him.

It is hardly possible, following the argument, to
doubt that she had loved him.
—
In any case, he was her only philosopher, the
one ewe lamb. Christina had half the philo-
—
sophers of Europe at her service, let her make
her choice among them. Our next chapter will
show those other philosophers arriving at her
Court in flocks.

85
 CHAPTER VIII
Christina's Court of Scholars — —
Saumaise The practical joke
—
which Christina played on him His gorgeous Court dress
— Vossius^ afterwards Canon of Windsoi*—Daniel Heinsius
— —
and his bibulous propensities Nicolas Heinsius Stiern-
hielm — Naudaeus — Bochart — Christina's nervous break-
down — Frivolity prescribed as a cure for — She plays
it

battledore and shuttlecock with a Doctor of Divinity

Let us adapt a headline from popular newspapers

and announce a chapter Mainly About Scholars.
:

From 1648 onwards it must have seemed

to scholars that all roads led to Stockholm.
Each scholar who arrived there seems, as soon
as he felt sure of his position at Court, to have
asked leave to introduce a friend and Christina,
;

so far as scholars were concerned, took the line

that her friends' friends were her friends, the —
more the merrier. There was a continual
coming and going of scholars but, on the ;

whole, they came more than they went, and

their numbers steadily increased. It is the
easier to distinguish their several characteristics
because the Swedes did not like them either
individually or collectively, and did not pretend
to do so.
The great Saumaise, who latinised his name
as Salmasius, heads the list. He was the
86
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Salmasius (or Saumaise) with whom Milton
engaged in Latin controversy concerning the
propriety of the execution of Charles i. and
;

Dr. Johnson tells us that Milton boasted of

having worried him into his grave by detecting
" howlers " in his Latin prose. His rank among
scholars was, nevertheless, as exalted as that
of Sir Richard Jebb in our own day ;but he
lacked Sir Richard Jebb's dignity, amiability,
and charm. He once boasted openly, in a
company of scholars, that he considered himself
a match for all the other scholars of the world
put together. " He seemed," wrote one of his
enemies, " to have made himself a throne on a
heap of pebbles in order that he might always
have missiles ready to hand to hurl at the
passers-by."
Moreover, Saumaise was not used to Courts,
and had a wife who was equally unaccustomed
to them, but nevertheless entertained high
social ambitions. His patience in putting up
with her, Christina said, was even more exem-
plary than his learning ; while her comment
on his social awkwardness was to the effect
that, though he knew the name for a chair in
dozens of languages, he did not know how to sit
down on one. Mme Saumaise, however, in-
sisting that her husband was at once " the most
learned of nobles and the most noble of learned
men," insisted also that his dress should be in
keeping with that character. Other professors,
less noble, might be satisfied with black or
87
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" subfusc " garments, but he must wear the
costume which she had designed for him. It
consisted of "a buff leather waistcoat, scarlet
breeches, and an ash-coloured hat adorned with
a white feather." But even so, people did
not call him, as they had called Descartes,
" a demi-god " they only laughed.
:

Whether Christina laughed is not recorded ;

but she did, at any rate, make Saumaise the

victim of one practical joke which sheds a
pleasant light upon her taste in jokes. It was
when he was ill, and she went to visit him in
his room

" She found him " (the French wit Menage

tells us) " in bed. He was reading a book which,
out of respect for her, he closed as soon as he
saw her enter. She asked him what book it
was ; and he admitted that he was enlivening
the tedium of his illness by reading a collection
of stories which were, he was bound to say,
just a little ... Aha said the Queen,
'
!
'

'
I must have a look at it. Show me the good
things.' M. Saumaise showed her one of the
best and she read it through to herself, smiling
;

as she did so. Then, in order to have a little

fun, she turned to the beautiful Mile Sparre,
her favourite maid-of -honour, who knew French.
'
Come, Sparre,' she said. '
Look at this
beautiful workdevotion entitled " How to
of
get on with the Ladies." I want you to read
this page aloud to me.' The fair maiden had
88
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
not read three lines before she stopped and
blushed, startled at the improprieties but as
;

the Queen, who was holding her sides with

laughter, peremptorily ordered her to go on,
her modesty did not save her. The poor girl
had to read every word of it."

And there we may leave Saumaise, merely

adding that when he left Stockholm, after a
year's stay, to resume the duties of his pro-
fessorship at Leyden, Christina dismissed him
with a pension as well as her blessing, and that
when he died, and his widow scrupulously
obeyed his testamentary injunction to throw
all his manuscripts in the fire, Christina wrote

to reproach her for having " killed a second

time one who ought to be immortal." But the
story of Christina's delight in such jests as that
of which Ebba Sparre was the victim can be
parallelled. A visitor was once invited to hear
a number of Swedish girls sing glees which the
Queen had taught them. They had been taught
to sing in French, — a language of which they
were all quite ignorant ; and the visitor found,
to his amazement, that the alleged glees which
their innocent lips had been taught to utter
were, in reality, amorous ditties of such a broad
indecorum that even the most brazen-faced
of men could hardly have rendered them
without blushing.

We pass to Vossius, the scholar from whom

89
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the Queen learnt Greek. He was a divine,
with an eye to the main chance and Httle scruple
as to the means of seizing it. Christina bought
his library, made him her librarian, and gave
him a roving commission to collect books for
her. He kept no proper accounts, and not
only stole a good deal of the money, but also
appropriated a good many of the books to his
own use. English readers may take a special
interest in him because Charles ii. subsequently
made him Canon of Windsor a post for which
:

the merry monarch thought him specially quali-

fied on the ground that he was a credulous
person who " believed everything except the
Bible." The story of his unedifying end is
told by another of Christina's scholarly proteges,
Peter Daniel Huet

" When he lay on his death-bed, in 1688,

being urged by the Dean of Windsor to receive
the Sacrament, either disregard of that solemnity,
or the expectation of still surviving, induced
him to decline the proposal with the observation
that what he then wanted from the Dean was
to be put in the way how to make the farmers
pay his dues ; and in that unedifying manner
he left the world."

It was Saumaise who introduced Vossius

at Court but he afterwards quarrelled with
;

Saumaise because the latter's son borrowed

money from him and neglected to repay it.
90
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Christinahad to intervene and make the peace
between them.

Nicolas Heinsius was another of Christina's

book-buyers and one has to be careful not to
;

do him an by confusing him with his

injustice
father, Daniel. Daniel had received marks of
distinction from Gustavus Adolphus but his ;

chief claim to distinction was his addiction to the

bottle. He was a Professor at Leyden, where
the frequency of his excuses for not lecturing
aroused the sarcasm of the students with the ;

result that one day, when he entered the

lecture-room, he found the following notice
posted on the door

" Professor Heinsius regrets to announce

that the consequences of last night's debauch
prevent him from lecturing this morning."

It is also related of him that one day, when

rolling unsteadily home from
a late supper-
party, he composed the following remarkable
elegiac couplet
Sta pes, sta bone pes, sta pes, ne labere, mi pes ;

Sta pes, aut lapides hi mihi leetus erunt.

Which distich has been rendered into English

hexameters thus
Stand leg, pray stand, I beg, stand leg, and don't slide about
so;
Good leg, pr'ythee trip not, stand fast, or these stones must
my bed be.

91
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
But Nicolas Heinsius inherited Daniel's
talents without his weaknesses, and collected
books quite honestly for Christina in Italy.
The scale on which she conducted her purchases
is attested by one of his letters to her

" The Italians " (he reported) " began to

complain that ships were laden with the spoils
of their libraries, and that all their best aids to
learning were carried away from them to the
remotest North."

The story of Professor Heinsius may suggest

the story of Professor Boeder : brought from
Strasburg to be Professor at the University of
Upsala. He, too, had trouble with the students,
though for a different reason. Their stupidity
annoyed him, and he once concluded a lecture
on Tacitus with the offensive remark "I would :

say more if the wooden heads of the Swedes

could comprehend it." The students waited
until the lecture was over, and then they acted.
They laid their foreign Professor across a desk
and smacked him, having first undressed him
for the purpose and then they proceeded to
;

further outrages, — smashing his bedroom windows

by night, w^hen he was in bed with Frau
Boeder. Christina ordered the punishment of
the offenders, and sought to soothe the injured
vanity of their victim by giving him four thou-
sand crowns, a gold chain, and the office of
historiographer but he nevertheless resigned,
;

and departed with all speed.

92
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
That pleasant anecdote shows that the Swedes
did not love learning when it came to them from
abroad but the case of Stiernhielm shows that
;

they were hardly more tolerant of it when it

was a native product. It was he who intro-
duced burning-glasses and microscopes into
Sweden. With the former he singed the beard
of a rustic ; with he magnified
the latter
a flea, to the amazement of a clergyman.
The result was that both the clergyman and
the countryman deposed in Court that he
was a sorcerer and an atheist and Christina ;

had to interfere to save him from the stake.

She had to interpose a second time to protect
him from the consequences of an expression of
opinion that the Swedish language was of greater
antiquity than Hebrew and this time she
;

carried the courage of her convictions to the

point of ennobling him.

Naudaeus, who was

yet another of Christina's
numerous Meibom, the great auth-
librarians ;

ority on the music of the ancients; Comenius,

who undertook to reorganise Swedish educa-
tion ;Hermann Conring, Loccenius, Schoefiler
these are a few more miscellaneous names which
it must suffice, for the moment, merely to
mention. The stories which one or two of the
names suggest belong to a later chapter. Before
we come to them we will pause to speak of the
great Bochart and his young friend, Peter Daniel
Huet.
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Bochart was the Protestant minister at Caen,
and the author of an admirable work on Sacred
Geography. Christina sent for him on the
recommendation of Vossius, and, Huet writes,
" though fettered by the pubHc ministry of his
rehgion and the attractions of a very affec-
tionate family, and habituated to the pleasures
of study and tranquil leisure, he postponed
every other consideration to the will of the
Queen, and was not deterred either by the
length of the journey, the loss of time, or the
inconvenience to his affairs." The eloquent
passage shows us Christina's Court gathering in
the scholars as the magnet gathers up the iron
They left all to
filings. join her, though it
took them weeks to do so : weeks in which
they were tossed on stormy seas in ships which
we should call cockle-shells, or jolted over roads
which were worse than Cornish lanes in winter.
— —
So strong and so well-founded was the belief
that she would make it worth their while, at
the cost of the Swedish taxpayer, to do so.
That Huet was invited by any one except
Bochart does not appear. Bochart seems to
have assumed that he might bring his friend,
pretty much as a visitor to a great house assumes
that he may bring his chauffeur and the assump-
;

tion was not unwarranted. was de-

Christina
lighted to see him, —she keptopen house for
scholars. She shook hands with Huet warmly,
advised him not to marry, and turned him loose
among her manuscripts. But surprises never-
94
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
theless awaited both the guests. They had
heard much from Vossius concerning her way
of life—

"He explained to her the ancient authors

in both languages nor did she suffer a day to
;

pass without devoting some of her best hours

to reading with him, in which she engaged so
eagerly as to neglect the usual time for repose."

Bochart expected that he too would find an

ardent scholar instead of which, to his astonish-
;

ment, he fovmd a playfellow, or one, at all —

events, who proposed herself as such. He must
—
play the flute to her, he who could no more play
the flute than he could fly. Or he must accept
her challenge to a game of battledore and
shuttlecock, —
he the most illustrious of living
Oriental scholars, attired in the flowing robes
of a Doctor of Divinity. It might be hard to
say which of the two requests he found the more
embarrassing.
was amazing as well as embarrassing
It
but was an explanation.
there Between
Bochart's invitation and his arrival in Stock-
holm things had happened. Christina had
broken down through overwork, just like a
Girton girl who is too anxious to shine in exam-
inations. She had had fevers and fainting fits
— various symptoms of heart failure and nervous
collapse. The Swedish doctors had been unable
to make anything of her case so a French
;

95
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
doctor had taken charge of it. Instead of
medicine, he had prescribed a Hveher hfe, less —
study and a modicum of fun with or without vul-
garity. In challenging a Doctor of Divinity to a
game of battledore and shuttlecock Christina was
only carrying out his prescription. It was for
the same reason that she called for a tune on the
flute from him, —as reasonable a request as if
Queen Victoria had called for a tune on the
flute from the Dean of Christ Church or the
Master of Balliol, —and chaffed Huet about his
him than an Argive
desire for a wife, reminding
namesake of his, of whom Pausanias wrote, had
had a wife who had made him ridiculous.
We must now introduce the physician who
had brought about this transformation the :

ingenious Dr. Bourdelot.

96
 CHAPTER IX
Christina's French physician, Dr. Bourdelot — Practical jokes
played on the scholars at his suggestion — His unpopularity
and ultimate discomfiture — Christina's quarrel with Magnus
de la Gardie

Bourdelot was the son of a barber of Sens, in

France but some say that the barber was a
;

surgeon. The two calUngs were not so easily dis-

tinguishable then as now and it may well be that
;

he both shaved the whole and cupped the sick.

Whether surgeon or barber, however, at any rate
he married well and his brother-in-law famous
; —
alike as a hellenist and a physician —
adopted his
son. The son is said to have been brought up as
an apothecary, and to have had no right to the
title of physician but that is another distinction
;

which was finer in those days than in ours. The

oersons who called him "quack " and " charlatan"
lad reasons other than professional for doing so, as
we shall see. He was employed, at any rate, at one
time, as physician to the Prince de Conde; and he
practised in Italy, and came back with a story that
he had doctored the Pope and might have been a
Cardinal if he had liked. If one doubts the truth
of that story, one does so, not because one has
confidence in the principles which, at that date,
G 97
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
governed the distribution of papal patronage,
but because Bourdelot does not strike one as the
sort of man who would have declined the honour
if the chance of it had really come his way.

He came to Sweden as the nominee of

Saumaise, who wanted a friend at Court to
keep his memory green there, after his depart-
ure, and jog Christina's elbow if there should
appear to be any question of suppressing the
pension which she had granted him. Christina's
illness — —
or one of her illnesses occurred soon
after his arrival. Some irresponsible person
told a story of having seen a phantom funeral
in the Park ; and this was held to be an evil
omen, like the wail of the banshee in Ireland.
The Court physicians insisted that nothing serious
—
was the matter, that Christina only needed
to take a few bottles of their stuff. She took
their stuff, began to recover, and relapsed and ;

then Bourdelot appeared, with the air of a con-

sultant who proposed to teach the general prac-
titioners their business, and emphatically insisted
upon a complete change of treatment.
—
There was a row, such a row as raged between
German and English physicians round the death-
bed of the German Emperor Frederick. The
Swedish doctors said that the French doctor was
—
a " quack," that he knew no medicine and had
ulterior motives. The French doctor replied
that the Swedish doctors were the slaves of a
pernicious professional routine, —that Christina
had a great deal more the matter with her than
98
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
their bottles of stuff could cure, —that it was a
case not for medicine but for a change of habit
that what was really wanted was rest and frivolity.
He added that Christina evidently did not know
how to be frivolous, and that the learned men
about her did not seem to know how to teach
her ;but that he did, being himself a frivolous
man. And he thrummed a light air on the guitar,
and sang; that being, as we say, his "bedside
manner."
It was good sense, whether Bourdelot was a
good doctor or net. In an age in which phy-
sicians carried gold-headed canes, and shook
their wooden heads funereally, this light and
easy bedside manner was the very thing to please
the patient. Christina admitted that all work
and no play had made her a dull girl. She was
delighted to have a doctor who would not only
tell her to run away and play, but would offer to

play with her. She was as much impressed when

Bourdelot told her that the French laughed
at blue-stockings as was Mme Bovary when an
admirer assured her that it was considered the
correct thing in Paris to make love in the interior
of cabs. She agreed that a little fun would be a
pleasant change for her she had a sense of
;

humour, as the circumstances of her visit to

Saumaise's bedside have shown us; and she,
therefore, installed her new doctor as Master of
the Revels.
People said, of course, that he was her lover,
it was the sort of thing that people were sure to
99
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
say. The statement can be neither proved nor
disproved, and may, therefore, be ignored. We
are only entitled to speak of an infatuation which
clashed, as we with an earlier infatua-
shall see,
tion ;our picture is only of a gay and festive
physician taking charge of his royal patient's
life, and making her Court the scene of much

innocent merriment. It was he, we cannot

doubt, who proposed that she should play
battledore and shuttlecock with the Doctor of
Divinity instead of taking lessons from him
and that was only one of many frivolities which
surprised and shocked the men of learning.
The amiable Bochart was, on yet another
occasion, the victim. Arrangements had been
made for that excellent man to give a reading
from his admirable but tedious treatise on Sacred
Geography to the assembled Court. At the last
moment the physician entered, explaining that
the Queen was too ill to attend, but that the
reading must proceed in her absence. It pro-
ceeded before a company who regarded the
reading as an unmitigated nuisance, and did not
disguise their sentiments. Bochart declared that
in ridiculing him they only made themselves
ridiculous, and " brought down upon their heads
the just indignation of all reputable people " ;

but, on the whole, the laugh was unquestionably

with Bourdelot.
Other victims of his pleasantry were Naudaeus
and Meibom. The latter was the greatest living
authority on the Music of the Ancients the
;

100 t
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
former had specialised in their dances and ;

Bourdelot persuaded Christina to command them

to give an entertainment. Meibom was to sing,
and Naudseus was to dance to the accompaniment
of his voice. But Meibom had no voice, and
Naudseus's knowledge of dancing was purely
theoretical. They tried to excuse themselves ;
but their excuses were not accepted. It was a
command performance the Queen had to be
;

obeyed ;and the Court was dissolved in in-

extinguishable laughter. Whereupon Meibom,
flying into a furious passion, vowed that he
would punch Bourdelot's head, and set to work
to do so in the Queen's library with the result
;

that he was expelled from Sweden. Bochart

wrote to Vossius about it, heaving a sigh, pre-
dicting that Christina would one day see the
error of her ways, and meanwhile sadly quoting
Virgil's Forsan et hcec olim meminisse juvabit.
So that Bourdelot became unpopular with
the scholars and he also had to face the com-
;

bined hostility of the doctors and the clergy.

The former spread stories to the effect that all
the patients, except the Queen, who had ever
consulted him had died the
; charged
latter
him with atheism. Seeing that they also
charged him, at a later date, with having tried
to convert Christina to Roman Catholicism,
that accusation need not be taken seriously ;

but the ecclesiastics were, at any rate, quite

serious in their attempt to use the charge as a
means of getting rid of him. There were prolix
101
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
pulpit denunciations to the effect that God
would be sure to " spew evil sovereigns out of
his mouth"; but all in vain. All sermons,
whether they praised or censured her, were
equally a nuisance to Christina. She lolled
on her cushions and caressed her dogs in-
stead of listening ; or she scraped her chair on
the floor or she laughed and jested with her
;

companions.
It was decided that her mother, who had
by this time returned to Sweden, had better
speak to her but Marie-Eleonore was almost
;

the silliest, whereas Christina was quite the

cleverest, woman in the country. It was as
if Mrs. Nickleby had been persuaded to talk
seriously to George Eliot concerning her religious
opinions and the result was what might have
;

been expected. Christina listened for a little

while with a politely patient curiosity and ;

then, mingling contempt with her politeness,

suggested that, as her mother seemed to have
some difficulty in understanding points of theo-
logical detail, she had better leave them to the
theologians. Whereupon Marie-Eleonore burst
into tears ; and Christina, after remarking that
her trouble was of her own making, relented,
and comforted her, and advised her to go and
live in the country, —which she did.
There was trouble, again, between Bourdelot
and Magnus de la Gardie but there is not much
;

of a story to be got out of that. Bourdelot had,

in vulgar parlance, " put " Magnus de la Gardie's
102
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" nose out of joint " no more no less. Magnus
: ;

de la Gardie Avas a vain fool, though a handsome

one and he was not the less vain of his Queen's
;

favour, because he was now a married man.

After all the significant hints which he had
dropped in Paris, it was not agreeable to him to
find the doctor preferred to him. A nobleman
is a nobleman, however foolish a doctor is ;

only a doctor, however good his bedside manner.

So Magnus accused Bourdelot of slandering
him behind his back and Bourdelot faced the
;

music. He demanded to be confronted with

the witnesses and the witnesses broke down
;

under examination, with the result that Christina

forbade them to show their faces in her Court
again.
Once more, therefore, Bourdelot had tri-
umphed but though he beat his enemies in
;

detail, he had to yield in the end to their accumu-

lated animosity. The particulars of his dis-
comfiture are obscure but it is at least clear
;

that he good order, loaded with

retired in
presents. There was even talk of making him
an Ambassador, though that did not come to
pass : fortunately, perhaps, seeing that the
functions of a diplomatist are different from
those of a practical joker. The most likely
theory that he overdid his jocularity, and
is

Christina tired of it when she recovered her

health and mental balance but the story that ;

she tossed away a letter which he WTote her, say-

ing that it " smelt of medicine," is a story which
103
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
itself smells of malice. She always considered
that Bourdelot's well-timed levity had saved her
life; and we find her still in amiable corre-
spondence with him towards the end of her life :

protesting that she is now well enough to " laugh

at doctors," and that the best of all receipts
for sound health is a trip to Rome.
In a sense, of course, Bourdelot's retirement
was a triumph for Magnus de la Gardie but Mag-
;

nus got little satisfaction from his triumph. He

came to Christina yet again, with the air of
a man with a grievance, complaining that it had
reached his ears that she had spoken evil of him
—
behind his back, had called him a traitor and
said that, though she should not punish him
herself, she would hear with pleasure of any
affront that had been put upon him by others.
He had —
heard it, he said, from Steinberg, the
Queen's Equerry, a gallant man who had lately
saved Christina's life by fishing her out of the
water, into which she had unfortunately fallen
while inspecting a ship-of-war. He w^as instantly
confronted with Steinberg as with Bourdelot
Steinberg, like Bourdelot, denied having used
the words attributed to him and Steinberg,
;

like Bourdelot, was believed.

And then there were further complications,
Magnus dragged a certain Count Schlippenbach
into the matter. It was Schlippenbach, he now
stated, who had told him what Steinberg had
said that Christina had said about him ;but
Schlippenbach, in his turn, denied having carried
104
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
any such gossip. Very well, said Christina,
Magnus, having had the lie given him by
Schlippenbach, must challenge him. But Magnus
would not. Schlippenbach, he said, was not of
sufficiently high rank to be worthy of meeting
a nobleman of his dignity on the field of honour.
In that case, said Christina, Magnus had better
go away, and stay away. He pleaded for an
interview, and received an indignant reply, —
a letter to which reference has already been
made

" not imagine " (Christina wrote) " that

Do
I am angry with you, —
I assure you that I am
not. The only sentiment which I can hence-
forth feel for you is that of pity and that ;

cannot help you, seeing that you have, by

your own act, rendered my feelings of good will
for you useless. You are unworthy, on your
own showing. . . . Were I capable of changing
my mind, I should regret ever having formed
a friendship with a soul so feeble but such ;

weakness is unworthy of me, and, having always

acted in accordance with the dictates of reason,

I ought not to blame myself for throwing a veil
over the course of events."

And then comes the phrase already quoted,

which it is necessary to repeat

*'
During these nine years I have done too
much for you in always blindly taking your
105
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
part against every one. But now that you are
false to your truest no reason
interests, there is
why I should give any further thought to
them. Yo7i have yourself betrayed a secret
. . .

which I had resolved to keep all my life, by showing

that you were unworthy of the fortune I built for
you.''''

It isan enigmatic sentence, one can only —

guess at its inner meaning. It might mean that
Magnus had been favoured, and been false,
and that Christina had forgiven the infidelity
and covered it up with a sentimental friendship.
Or the secret may have been that Magnus was,
in reality, Christina's natural brother, — the
natural Gustavus Adolphus and the
son of
beautiful Ebba Brahe.
His subsequent bitter-
ness towards her would be equally in keeping
with either theory but there is no evidence of
;

anything, and we must be content to leave the

mystery mysterious turning from it to inspect
:

other aspects of Christina's Court, and to inspect

Christina herself through the eyes of Cromwell's
Ambassador, Sir Bulstrode Wliitelocke, who
arrived in Sweden at about this time.

106
 CHAPTER X
Bulstrode, the British Ambassador to Sweden — His character
sketch of Christina — His dance with her — His conversa-
tions with her —
on various subjects She informs him of
—
her intention to abdicate His unsuccessful attempt to
dissuade her

Though Bulstrode Wliitelocke was the Am-

bassador of a Puritan Government, we must not
think of him as one of the ordinary psalm-singers
of the period. He figured on the Puritan side in
the character of a " poHtical Dissenter " rather
than a fanatic. He had been a gentleman before
he became a Puritan he remained a gentleman
:

first and a Puritan afterwards. He was an

Oxford man a—fellow commoner of St. John's
and a barrister of the Middle Temple, with a
practice worth £2000 a year and a country seat
near Henley-on-Thames. As a law student he
had organised a masque for the diversion of the
King and Court he had been complimented, on
;

that occasion, not only on his stage-management,

but on his dancing. England had need of such
Puritans no less than of the Puritans who went
about snuffling that if Christ had not died for
them they had been damned.
He was one of those, moreover, who had too
much wit to associate themselves with the
107
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
indictment, trial, and execution of the King :

a reason, of course, for expecting him to be a

persona grata to other sovereigns, who might have
found it hard to be poHte to regicides. On the
other hand, he was too good a Parhamentarian to
please Cromwell ; and it therefore suited Crom-
well to find him honourable employment at a
distance from home. So, when there was trouble
with the Dutch, and a Treaty with Sweden was
deemed desirable, he was the obvious man to
be charged with the mission. He did not in
the least want to go but he yielded to the
;

claims of expediency, took two of his children

with him, leaving ten behind, and tore himself
from the arms of a wife who not only wept
but "shrieked" at the hour of his departure,
believing Sweden to be as remote as the North
Pole, and sadly fearing that she would never
see her husband's face again.
And truly the journey was a terrible experi-
ence, very different from any that a modern
Ambassador has to take. On the high seas
Whitelocke had to run the gauntlet of the Dutch
fleet, —he actually
captured one of their ships,
and considered he did no violence to
that
international law by bringing it into a Swedish
port as a prize. It was a time, too, when British
Ambassadors were frequently waylaid and mur-
dered, as Ascham and Dorislaus had lately been.
Moreover, the sea voyage was long and rough,
and most of the company were prostrated with
sea-sickness ;and even after they had landed
108
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
at Gothenburg, their troubles were by no
means at an end. They still had to travel in
coaches and carts —a long procession of one
hundred carts for — many weary days over
abominable roads, putting up for the night in
miserable country inns before they reached Up-
sala, where the Queen was wintering. It was on
November 6, 1653, that Whitelocke weighed
anchor in the Thames, and on November 15
that he landed. He rested at Gothenburg for a
fortnight, and did not get to Upsala until just
before Christmas Eve.
His adventures by the way are his business
rather than ours but his record of the spirit in
;

which he faced them shows us usefully what

manner of man it was that Cromwell had sent to
Christina. He was a Puritan up to a point, but
a very cheery Puritan one who combined a
:

rough sense of humour with a keen sense of his

personal and ambassadorial dignity. It was his
pleasant habit to " droll " with his companions,
or, as we should say, to " chaff " them. He began
by drolling with the ship's company, "by affording
them now and then a douse in the neck or a kick
in jest . . which demeanours please those kind
.

of people." He ended by drolling with the

Queen of Sweden, albeit in a manner more
suitable to her condition.
Though no total abstainer, again, he astonished
the Swedes by refusing to join them in the
drinking of toasts. "WTiy not 'eat' a toast
instead ? " he asked them and there were indeed
;

109
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
horrible examples in Sweden which indicated
that that was the safer way of pledging those
whom one esteemed. The case
of the Russian
Ambassador may be citeda formal reception
;

of the diplomatic corps having to be put off on

account of that Muscovite's excesses

" Tlie Russ " (Whitelocke " had sent

tells us)
word that, the notice of his audience not being
given him till about ten o'clock this morning, he
had before that time drunk so much aqua-vitce
that he was already drunk, and not in a condition
to have his audience that day, but desired it might
be appointed another day, and he to have earlier
notice of it."

Another matter in which Whitelocke had firm

principles and stuck to them firmly was that of
Lord's Day observance. As each Sabbath came
round he required his chaplain to preach two
sermons to his retinue and when the chaplain
;

had finished he generally added admonitions of

his own, speaking more to the point than the
clergy did, and having, as one imagines, some-
thing of a lawyer's disdain for clerical circum-
locutions. Nor would he divert himself, or
countenance diversion, on the Sunday a day :

which, he insisted, in many discourses, must be

wholly given over to devotional exercise and
Bible reading. He begged that he might be
given no Sunday invitations even to Court
entertainments, in order that he might not have
110
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
to cause offence by declining them
but on other
;

days he could be induced to dance, with the

slow dignity becoming his years and station,
and was, in fact, rather glad to have the oppor-
tunity of demonstrating that, Puritan though he
was, he danced uncommonly well.
Such were his manners and disposition and ;

if we desire a picture of his appearance on

ceremonial occasions, this is how he tells us that

he looked

" His secretary, for the credit of his master,

had put himself into a rich habit. Wliitelocke
himself was plain, but extraordinarily rich in his
habit, though without any gold or silver lace or
embroidery. His suit was of black English cloth,
the cloak lined with the same cloth, and that and
the suit set with very fair rich diamond buttons ;

his hat-band of diamonds answerable and all of

;

the value of £1000."

Thus plainly but bravely apparelled, he pro-

ceeded to his first audience the Queen receiving
;

him " sitting, at the upper end of the room, upon

her chair of state of crimson velvet, with a canopy
of the same over it." Her magnificence, he
observed, was less than his. Her dress was " of
plain grey stuff," surmounted with " a jacket
such as men wear of the same stuff." Round her
neck was a black scarf, " tied before with a black
ribbon, as soldiers and mariners sometimes use
to wear " ;while " her hair was braided and
111
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
hung loose upon her head." She nevertheless
had " much of majesty in her demeanour "
but Bulstrode Whitelocke was not the man to
let himself be too much impressed by it. The
Spanish Ambassador was reported to have been
so dazzled by her that, when first received, he
had made three low bows and retired without
speaking, —affecting to be overawed, dumb-
foundered, unable to find words
but if Christina
;

expected Whitelocke to do the same, she had

misjudged him

" The Queen " (he writes) " was very atten-
tive whilst he spake, and, coming up close to him,
by her looks and gestures (as was supposed)
would have daunted him ; but those who have
been conversant in the late great affairs in
England are not so soon as others appalled with
the presence of a young lady and her servants."

So, the ordinary civilities having been ex-

changed, Whitelocke withdrew and settled down
in his Embassy. He showed himself a man of
the world as well as a Puritan by hastening to
make friends with " Grave Tott, the Queen's
favourite, a gallant young gentleman " and
;

one would gather from the way he puts it that

it was a matter of course to him that queens

—
should have favourites, a foreign custom to
be accepted by him in the same tolerant spirit
in which he accepted foreign food and foreign
languages. He also let his interests range some-
112
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
what in the style of an American Ambassador in
England by entering into friendly relations with
the students of the Upsala University. They
presented an address of welcome to him, com-
posed in verse and in English. He thought the
verses quaint and so they were
;

" One only star (from East) three Kings did lead
Most Mars and Jupiter brought you to Swede,
glorious
Who, and wisdom.
doubtless, with your famous will
Will knot and LOCK ours with your most martial kingdom."

Et cetera ; leading to the conclusion that

"Thus do we, the literal flower of this most glorious
Academy,
With hearts embrace whom Heaven sent, and praise your
famous Excellency."

And though, as Whitelocke's

so to business ;

business not ours, we will not dwell upon it,

is

but merely record that he was kept kicking his

heels in Sweden rather longer than he liked before
he could get it finished. The round of banquets,
musical evenings, and diplomatic interviews
would be wearisome to follow in detail but one ;

must insist that Whitelocke was a strong man

who maintained the dignity of the Common-
wealth by emphatically affirming his title to
ceremonial precedence. When the Master of the
Ceremonies told him that, at a certain reception,
the Danish Ambassador would take precedence
of him because he was the representative of a
crowned sovereign, he replied that if the Danish
Ambassador attempted to do anything of the
H 113
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
kind, he would lay violent hands on him, even in
the royal presence, and throw him out with the
;

result that, as Whitelocke was believed to be a

man of his word, the Danish Ambassador received
no invitation to that party.
His firmness, however, did not prevent
Christina from liking him. Again and again
she invited him to join her when she proposed to
" take the air " and the conversation was by
;

no means limited to diplomatic business. He

*'
drolled " with her, as has been said he had
;

even some reason to believe that she confided in

him. She told him that she considered Cromwell
" one of the gallantest men in the world,"
superior even to the Prince de Conde. She was
much interested in his description of the officers
and soldiers of the Army of the Parliament " en-
couraging and exhorting one another out of the
—
word of God " an example which Gustavus
Adolphus had set and she mentioned the pro-
;

posal of marriage which she had received from

Charles ii.

" I confess that letters have passed between

us ; but this I assure you, that I will not marry
that King he is a young man, and in a condition
;

sad enough though I respect him very much,

;

yet I shall never marry him, you may be well

assured."

She was also curious about Whitelocke's own

matrimonial affairs
114
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" How many wives have you had ? "
" I have had three wives."
" Have you had children by all of them "
?

Yes, by every one of them."

*'

" Pardieu Vous etes incorrigible "

! !

" Madam, I have been a true servant to your

sex ; and as it was my duty to be kind to my
wives, so I count it my happiness and riches and
strength to have many children."

Then we have a curious dialogue arising out

of some remarks on the comparative poverty of
Sweden. The English, Christina said, had money
to spare, whereas she had none whereupon;

"I do not see Your Majesty to waste the

revenues of your Crown in gallantry of clothes
for your person."
" I am the least curious in clothes of any
woman, especially now I am in the country."
" Your wearing plain clothes makes them
rich."

Acompliment which the Queen turned with

the irrelevant remark " My Chancellor will be
:

in town shortly " whereto Whitelocke adroitly

;

responded "
: Your Majesty is happy in such
a servant of so great wisdom, experience, and
fidelity."

Religion was another of Christina's favourite

subjects. The number and variety of the sects
116
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
in England perplexed her and she was also
;

curious to know what Whiteloeke thought about

transubstantiation, —a significant hint as to the
turn which her thoughts were beginning to
take. That, however, is a matter which we
shall have to return to. For the moment it is
more relevant to show how Wiitelocke acquitted
himself at one of the Court balls. Christina
invited him to dance with her he begged to be
;

excused, but she insisted "I will try," she said,

:

" whether you can dance." So he took up the

challenge, and earned a compliment

" The Hollanders " (Christina said) " reported

to me, a great while since, that all the noblesse
of England were of the King's party, and none
but mechanics of the Parliament party, and not
a gentleman among them now I thought to try
;

you, and to shame you if you could not dance ;

but I see that you are a gentleman and have been

bred a gentleman, and that makes me say that
the Hollanders are lying fellows."

Whiteloeke properly replied that the

"V-VTiereto
"
Parliament would not have given the honour to
any but a gentleman to kiss Your Majesty's hand,
adding "I was bred up in the qualities of a
:

gentleman, and, in my youth, was accounted not

inferior to others in the practice of them." And
Christina thanked him, saying "I take it as a
:

favour that you were willing to lay aside your

gravity and play the courtier upon my request,
116
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
which I see you can do so well when you
please."
Evidently Whitelocke knew how to deal with
the Queen who required Doctors of Divinity to
play battledore and shuttlecock, unbending with —
more dignity than they did. His manner with
her would seem to have been that of a father with
a skittish daughter : he tells us of yet another
occasion on which he humoured her inclination
for friskiness.
It was on May Day, when he was permitted
to offer her an entertainment in the English style.
He not only gave her a banquet which tempted
her to " eat and drink more than she used to do in
three or four days at her own table " ; he also
found her " full of pleasantness and gaiety of
spirit both in supper-time and afterwards," in the
following manner

" Among
other frolics " (he says) '' she com-
manded WTiitelocke to teach her ladies the English
salutation, which, after some pretty defences,
their lips obeyed, and Whitelocke most readily
. .and her discourse was all of mirth and
.

drollery, wherein Whitelocke endeavoured to

answer her, and the rest of the company did their
parts."

Whether Christina herself took lessons in

" the English salutation " does not appear,
perhaps she already knew it but these stories, ;

at any rate, show us fairly well how WTiitelocke

117
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
regarded her. He was not overawed, he did not —
take her too seriously. As soon would the Vice-
Chancellor of Cambridge be overawed by a
Girton girl because she was reported to write
brilliant iambics She remained just a " young
!

lady " to him. His cue was to pat her paternally

and approvingly on the back when she did well
to descend a little way towards her level and
humour her when she was gay ; to admonish her
when the gaiety was excessive to give her good ;

advice out of the vast storehouse of his ex-

perience. No doubt he " had a way with him "
which Christina liked even when he gave her " a
talking to " on the impropriety of dancing on
the Sabbath and that is how it came about that
;

she proposed to tell him a secret and ask his

advice

Queen : "I shall surprise you with some-

thing that I intend to communicate to you
but it must be under secrecy."
Whitelocke :
" Madam, we have been
that
versed in the affairs of England do not use to be
surprised with the discourse of a young lady.
Whatsoever Your Majesty shall think fit to impart
to me, and command to be under secrecy, shall
be faithfully obeyed by me."

What she should tell him, Christina con-

tinued, she had as yet told to no one else. She
told it now because she desired advice ; and
then she came out with it

118
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" Sir, this it is. Ithoughts
have it in my
and resolution to quit the Crown of Sweden,
and to retire myself unto a private life, as much
more suitable to my contentment than the
great cares and troubles attendant upon the
government of my kingdom and what think ;

"
you of this resolution ?

It was a little disingenuous. The resolution

was not so new as all that, —the secret had
already been imparted to a good many others.
Chanut, for one, had been taken into Christina's
confidence long before Whitelocke. Nor did
she impart all her reasons for her decision, the —
religious reason, which would not have appealed
to Whitelocke, was withheld we will deal with :

that reason in its place. But she had a woman's

desire to be advised to do the thing which
she had made up her mind to do
and she had ;

ulterior which will appear.

motives, So she
and Whitelocke argued the matter out for the
space of about three hours.
He spoke of the duty which a queen owed
to her subjects ; she replied that her successor
would be much more competent than she was
He then warned her
to discharge that duty.
of certain possible consequences of her abdica-
tion —a diminished income and affronts from
time-serving courtiers who now cringed and
fawned before her and to these arguments
;

also she had her answer ready. Her tastes,

she protested, were very simple "I can content :

119
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
myself with very little; and for servants, with
a lackey and a chambermaid." As for the
threatened disrespect "Hook upon such things as
;

these as the course of this world, and shall expect

such scorns, and be prepared to contemn them."
So Christina adhered to her opinion, and
Whitelocke to his and presently Whitelocke
;

discovered that the secret which had been

communicated to him was already secret de
Polichinelle, and that it had been communicated
to him for a particular private reason because :

Christina wanted a secret article included in

the projected Treaty, empowering Cromwell
to repudiate his engagements if her own retiring
allowance was not punctually paid. That, how-
ever, was altogether too feminine a proposal to
be practicable. Christina did not insist upon
it ; and the business being concluded, the fare-
wells were said. Gifts were exchanged ; and
Whitelocke received an invitation to visit the
Queen in Pomerania, where, she said, she pro-
posed to take the waters. One may quote a
final scrap of dialogue

Queen :
" If you willcome to me into Pomer-
land,you shall be as as any man living,
welcome
and we will be merry together."
Whitelocke " I humbly thank Your Majesty
:

for your great favour to your servant, who hath

a wife and children enough to people a province
in Pomerland, and I shall bring them all thither
to do Your Majesty service."
120
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Queen " If you will bring your lady and
:

all your children and family thither, and settle

yourself there, you shall want nothing in my
power, and shall be welcome to me."

But that was only politeness : interesting

chiefly as proving that the Puritan as well as
the Queen could, on occasion, grace life with
agreeable fibs. Not Pomerania but Rome was
Christina's destination and Whitelocke had no
;

intention of visiting her either in Pomerania

or anywhere else.
Nor was he really as deeply in her confidence
as he had flattered himself. His portrait of her
is valuable as a corrective of certain other por-
traits ; but the true story of her abdication,
and her motives for it, must be sought from
other sources.

121
 CHAPTER XI
Christina's conversion to Roman Catholicism — Her confidences
on the subject to —
Chanut Her reasons for changing
—
her rehgion The seed sown by Father Marcedo The —
—
evangehsts sent from Rome Pi'olonged argument and
ultimate conviction

Whitelocke's picture of Christina has its value,

though he did not understand her. In her clever-
ness he saw only a bright scholar's precocity in ;

her proposal to descend from the throne only a

" young lady's " capricious whim. It did not
occur to him that the " young lady," who seemed
to be soaking in his words of mature wisdom,
might really be playing with him and keeping
back a portion of her thoughts. Yet that is not
an infrequent way with young ladies. It may
even have been the way, sometimes, of Mrs. and
the Misses Whitelocke; and it was certainly
Christina's way. She was an infinitely more
complex young lady than the grave old Puritan
imagined.
It was not true that she proposed to quit her
throne merely for the sake of the greater calm of
a private station. She also meant to change her
religion ;and she told Wliitelocke nothing about
that. Nor was it true that Whitelocke was, as she
let him think, the first recipient of her confidences.
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Long before she confided in him she had con-
fided, as we know, in Chanut and Wliitelocke, in
;

fact, prints the letter to Chanut which makes

this clear, though without appearing to perceive
that it contradicts Christina's statement that she
had first sought advice from himself.

" You know" (Christina wrote to Chanut

on February 1653) "that this fancy hath
26,
continued with me a long time, and that it hath
not been without consideration. It is eight
years since I formed this resolution, and at least
communicated it to you. In all that
five since I
time nothing has happened to make me change
my mind."

For years, she adds, she has been working

towards the end which she now proposes to
accomplish. She perceives that her action will
be like the ringing down of the curtain on a
drama but she is indifferent to the applause or
;

the lack of it. The many will doubtless censure ;

but the few will approve and Chanut will be one
;

of the few. She is quite content that the mul-

titude shall be puzzled as to her motives. She
despises the multitude, —
she is capable of laughing
at them. Though she will have plenty of leisure
henceforward, she will devote none of it to
worrying about their criticisms of her conduct.
On the contrary, resigning without regret the
advantages which she has enjoyed without
improper pride, she will devote her time to
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
examining her past life and correcting her faults,
albeit without expressing any shocked surprise at
them, or regarding them as matters to be repented
and ashes. Nor is she acting with-
of in sackcloth
out consideration of the designs and decrees of
Providence, though she is not at all sure what
these may be

" If Providence should still deign to take the

trouble to direct my affairs for me, I shall submit
to the divine will with all proper respect and
resignation. If Providence leaves me to myself,
I shall devote the faculties divinely bestowed
upon me to the pursuit of happiness. And I
shall achieve happiness, feeling sure that I have
nothing to fear from either God or men ; and
the rest of my life shall be consecrated to
familiarising myself with these thoughts, and
watching from the safety of the haven the troubles
of those who are still agitated by the storms of
life because they have never given their minds

to such reflections. I am happy, am I not ?

Many would envy me if they knew my happi-
ness but you are too good a friend to envy me.
;

You will sympathise, rather, seeing that I have

the frankness to confess that I derive a goodly
share of these sentiments from my conversations
with you."

—
That is a real confidence, differing from the
conversations with Whitelocke as a confidence
differs from an apology. The heart speaks in it,
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
even if the facts are scamped. There was no
need for Christina to tell Chanut the facts, he —
knew them. He might protest, for form's sake ;

but he would also admire and express his ad-

miration,— sympathise and express his sympathy,
—realising that Christina's decision was no
sudden and irresponsible caprice, but the in-
evitable climax of a prolonged drama of the soul.
For Christina had long, as he knew, uneasily
lived a double life ; the life of a queen who was
the illustrious figure-head of a country glorious
in war ; and the life of a woman to whom the
routine of pomp was wearisome, and whose
aesthetic sensibilities bade her aim at self-develop-
ment, self-perfection, and self-expression. Alike
in study and in frivolity, the struggle between the
two sides of her nature had proceeded but the;

scholars had hardly got nearer to perceiving it

than the statesmen. To some of them she had
appeared merely a blue-stocking ; while others
— like the Doctor of Divinity with whom she
insisted on playing battledore and shuttlecock
had been shocked to see in her nothing but a romp.
She had been both these things at her hours,
in response to the influences working on her ;

the abiding influence being the neurotic strain

which impelled her to exaggerate in all things.
But those traits were superficial. The essence
was the desire to be herself and not the in-
carnation of her country to live her own life,
;

not the corporate life of Sweden. No women,

and only a few men, had been accorded glimpses
125
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
at this real self ; but they could see that her
motives, though apparently various, hung to-
gether. She was worried ; religious unrest was
mixed up with her worries but the worries and
;

the unrest were the occasion rather than the causes

of the great renunciation on which she had
determined.
She was worried with plots, opposition,
hostility of sundry kinds. Her statesmen were
jealous of her scholars ; her countrymen were
jealous of the foreigners. Different factions were
pulling different ways. The peasants wanted
her to take their part against the nobles the ;

nobles wanted her to take their part against the

peasants. There were even plots against her life,
though it can hardly be said that her life was in
any realdanger from them. The disorder in the
finances, which was really due to the expenses of
the Thirty Years War, was attributed to her ex-
travagance and satires were circulated on the
;

subject :notably a poem in which the follow-

ing imaginary dialogues occurred

" Beaulieu," asked the Queen of her Master of

the Ceremonies, " how much does a ballet cost ? "
*'
About ten thousand dollars. Your Majesty."
" What Is that all ?
! Get the money from
the Treasurer at once."

And then again-

" John Holm," asked the Queen of her Cham-

126
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
berlain, " what are people talking about in the
"
city ?
" They find that the time hangs heavily
and tediously because Your Majesty no longer
dances."
" Well, Beaulieu," said the Queen, turning to
the Master of the Ceremonies, " prepare a ball
for the amusement of the people. How much
"
does a ball cost ?
" About twenty thousand dollars, Your
Majesty."
" Very well ! Go to the Treasurer and tell
"
him to give you the money !

The implied charge was not altogether un-

founded. Christina had begun to fling money
about recklessly from the very day of her
Coronation, when her accession was honoured
with a salute of no less than 1800 guns, and wine,
both red and white, spouted from the fountains
all day long. But these things did not really
matter. Christina could have conciliated her
critics by mending her ways ; have
or she could
defied them. Sedition does not seem to have
frightened her. But she disliked the atmosphere
of political conflict and intrigue. She had no real
interest in the business, —
she knew a better way.
On the religious side, too, she had found a
way which pleased her better than that of the
long-winded Lutherans; though it would be
an error to think of her as a woman to whom
nothing but religion mattered. In later life,

127
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
indeed, when she wrote her Memoirs, she was
persuaded that she had cheerfully resigned
precious possessions for the sake of the Gospel
and the Kingdom but, in that distant view of
;

the matter, she had evidently got the perspective

wrong. Her tone, at the time, was different
for, on the very eve of her own change of religion,
we find her writing to Prince Frederick of Hesse
to dissuade him from changing his

"You must be aware " (she urged) " how

much converts are hated by those whom they
leave, and you must know from many famous
examples that they are despised by those whom
they join. Consider how the belief in his con-
stancy affects the reputation of a prince, and be
assured that your fame will suffer if you are
guilty of such a fault."

The inconsistency too glaring to be ex-

is

plained except on the assumption that, in the

choice of a religion, as in the other affairs of life,
circumstances alter cases a common assumption
:

in royal circles ever since the day when Henri iv.

declared Paris to be worth a mass. Christina, in
fact, speaks of herself, in this very letter, as being
of "a third religion," and therefore able to dis-
cuss the other two religions impartially. We
must be content to make what we can of her
attitude and her arguments when we come to
piece together the story, such as it is, of her
conversion.
128
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
There was no coup-de-foudre, such as has
marked the great historical conversions from the
time of St. Paul to that of General Booth.
It was a gradual process, ending, indeed, in
a sort of rapt mysticism, but originating in
an impulse partly aesthetic and partly philo-
sophic. Disgust with the aridities of Lutheran
hair - splitting, the aesthetic inadequacy of
Lutheran ritual, and the awful length of Lutheran
sermons, furnished the starting-point as we have :

seen, Christina's first manifestation of religious

originality was to misbehave in church. She
was also, most clever young women, in-
like
stinctively and intensely anxious to be "in the
movement " and those were days when, every-
;

where except in England, the prevalent spiritual

movement was back to Rome. Many eminent
scholars had 'verted or were 'verting and it ;

may well have seemed to Christina that all the

clever people, and all the nice people, were

Catholics.
How or when the
seed was first sown one
cannot say. She herself attributes her change of
heart to a serious illness which overtook her in
1648. " It was in this sickness," she writes,
" that I made a vow to quit all and become a
Catholic if God would save my life " but, if ;

she made the vow at that date, she certainly did

not hurry to fulfil it, as her attempt, made four
years later, to dissuade Frederick of Hesse from
becoming a Catholic most clearly shows. Her
enemies, on the other hand, have attributed her
I 129
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
conversion to the evil influence of Dr. Bourdelot
—
but that is a still less credible theory, not only
because Bourdelot is said to have been an atheist,
but also because of the improbability that such
a woman as Christina would have gone to a
practical joker for religious advice.
Most likely, therefore, the first effective
evangelists were Chanut and Descartes. The
former was the most sympathetic and the latter
the cleverest man whom Christina had ever met.
And they were both Catholics of a kind the :

—
kind which, somehow or other, in virtue, as it
were, of the disposition of their minds in water-
tight compartments, —
contrive to reconcile pro-
found and daring speculation with a theoretical
acceptance of the papal authority in the domain
of dogma. It does not much matter whether
they actually sowed the seed or only prepared
the soil, or whether the effect of their con-
versations was accidental or designed.
But then came Father Macedo, a and
Jesuit,
Confessor to the Portuguese Ambassador. The
Ambassador, who knew no Latin, sometimes em-
ployed him as an interpreter and he seized the
;

opportunity of spreading the light at times when

he was supposed to be discussing diplomatic
business. If he did not shake Christina's faith,
at least he aroused her curiosity. It was ar-
ranged between him and her, under the unsus-
pecting Ambassador's nose, that machinery
should be set in motion for her conversion that :

the General of the Jesuit Order should be asked

130
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
to send two of his best men to Sweden to reason
with her. Perhaps, delighting in theological
dialectics, shewished to show that she could give
a good account of herself in controversy or it
;

may be that intellectual pride forbade her to

yield, except to the Pojoe's picked champions.
Macedo, at any rate, accepted the commis-
sion and set out for Rome. The Ambassador
refused him leave of absence but he dispensed
;

with it, and departed secretly, holding that his

duty to the Church ranked before his duty to
the man who only paid his salary. Nor was his
flight altogether without adventure. He shivered
all night on a desolate rock while waiting for the
vessel which was to take him off. The scandalous
report was spread that he had not gone alone,
but had taken a lady with him on a gallant ex-
cursion. A hue and cry was raised. The cap-
tain of a Swedish man-of-war was sent in pursuit,
— albeit with secret instructions from Christina
on no account to catch the fugitive a series of
:

exciting incidents which may well have appealed

to her appreciation of the romantic, mysterious,
and spectacular.
And then, in due course, the emissaries of
the Jesuit General arrived Francesco Malines,
:

Professor of Theology at Turin, and Paul Casati,

Professor of Mathematics at Rome but still
;

an air of mystery —deeper mystery than

—
even before enveloped the proceedings. The
emissaries did not announce themselves they :

— —
knew or feared that a Protestant mob would
131
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
tear them limb from limb if their errand were
suspected. They appeared, therefore, as ordinary
Italian gentlemen travelling for their pleasure,
and were presented at Court in that character,
leaving it to Christina to divine their true
identity and question them. She had seen
them several times before she penetrated their
disguise ; but then there was a whispered colloquy,
as between the partners in some dark conspiracy
of melodrama
" Are you those whom "
I expect ?
" We are."
" me "
Have you letters for ?
" We have."
" Not a word of them to any one. Be silent
"
as the grave !

One can almost see her putting her finger

to her not exactly in jest, but with a certain
lips,

satisfaction at having a Secret which even her

sagacious Chancellor must not be allowed to
penetrate she was still young enough to take
:

her pleasure in that way. The next thing was

to find pretexts for private conversations with
the missionaries, and even to play with them
something very much akin to a comedy putting :

posers to them as if to make it clear that she

was worth converting because she was hard to
convert, —
affecting to be obdurate, even after
she had made up her mind to yield.
The position which she chose to defend
would seem to have been that of a sceptic rather
132
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
than an orthodox Protestant was a
; and it

fixed idea with her, in later years, that she had

never in her Hfe beHeved the Lutheran tenets.
We have only her word for that but we can ;

easily conceive that Catholicism appealed to

her by its trick of away intellectual
whittling
difficulties, instead of insisting upon a definite
intellectual attitude towards a vast number of
undemonstrable propositions. For that is un-
questionably the line of attack by which
Catholicism sometimes subdues superior minds.
Protestantism affirms at once the right of
private judgment and the duty of privately
judging in favour of particular conclusions. But
that is, of course, to confer a privilege with one
hand and take it away with the other, and to
assume authority in the very act of denying
it: an inconsistency which always seems either
painful or absurd to those who are acute enough
to detect it.

Catholicism, at any rate, perceives and avoids

that pitfall. It no more asks any Catholic to
have an opinion of his own about any doctrinal
subtlety than the Professor of Mathematics
expects the man in the street to have opinions
of his own about the infinitesimal calculus. Its
view is, rather, that, as mathematics are left
to mathematicians, so theology should be left
to theologians that whatever appears to
;

be " contrary to reason " shall be regarded

as " above reason " that the faithful shall
;

leave whatever puzzles them to the Church

133
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that is to say, to the Pope. If the Pope be
mistaken — perish the thought ! —the responsi-
bility is his. The convert need not worry, but
may confess his sins and be absolved.
That is the position. It seems to have both
pros and cons, but we need not go into them.
Enough to note it, and to note also how much
more powerfully than Protestantism it appeals
to those who combine dialectical acumen with
mystical inclinations. Christina was such a
one and hence her sudden capitulation after
;

strenuous resistance. She argued everything

the distinction between good and evil the ;

existence of God the immortality of the soul.

;

But then she added, to the intense astonishment

of the evangelists who believed that she was
trying to drive them into a corner " Perhaps,
:

after all, I am
nearer to becoming a Catholic
than you suppose."
" When we heard that," said Casati, " we
felt like men raised from the dead " and the ;

rest was Supposing she were

only detail.
admitted into the Church, Christina asked,
would the Pope accord her a dispensation to
receive the Lord's Supper, once a year, according
to the Lutheran rites ? The answer was that
the Pope would assuredly lend himself to no
such deception; and that settled it

" The die is cast," said Christina. " I must

resign my crown."

134
 CHAPTER XII
The great renunciation — Christina abdicates in favour of her
Gustavus— Picturesque details of the cere-
cousin, Charles
— —
mony Christina's departure Her reasons for expediting
—
it —
Attempt to detain her Across the Danish frontier
Free to live her own life at last

The hour for the great renunciation had come ;

and it would be idle to waste further words on

inquiry into the degree of Christina's sincerity
in invoking a religious motive for it. She was too
hysterical to be a conscious hypocrite in great
matters but she had too open a mind to be a
;

bigot or a fanatic, and looked to Catholicism for

religious repose rather than for religious stimu-
lation. Her determining desire was evidently
for moral, intellectual, and aesthetic elbow-room,
— the Ibsen heroine's desire for escape from the
doll's house, summed up in the phrase Je veux :

vivre de ma vie !

She had made a previous effort to escape as

far back as 1651, almost immediately after her
coronation and the Swedes, with their frugal
;

minds, had protested that, if she meant to

abdicate, she ought to have spared the country
the expense of that ceremonial. " What " they !

had asked. " Was the coronation, then, only

a spectacle arranged for Her Majesty's amuse-
135
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
merit ? " And the members of her Council had,
at the same time, opposed her design with moral
maxims. " Changes," they had gravely urged,
" seldom do good, and frequently do harm." A
solemn engagement had been entered into, and
must not be lightly broken. As for that leisure
which Christina desired for the living of her own
life in her own way, they were not so sure either

that it would be good for her or that she had any

right to seek it

" We not know " (they represented)

do
" that Your Majesty would lead a more peaceful
life after abdicating, for the future is hidden from

our eyes nor are we satisfied that repose would

;

be consistent with Your Majesty's duty. Cares

and anxieties are common to mankind and they ;

specially appertain to sovereign rulers, whose

duty it is to seek their pleasure, and find their
happiness, in work."

It was spoken like a copy-book ; and the

sagacious Oxenstiern summed it all up in phrases
worthy of Polonius, concluding with the threat
that there would be wholesale resignations in
high places, throwing the entire country into
confusion, if the Queen did not give way. So
Christina yielded and one may fairly conjecture
;

that she would not have been treated very gener-

ously in the matter of her retiring allowance if she
had stood out. None the being convinced
less,

against her will, she was of the same opinion

136
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
still ; and
it was only a case of reculer pour mieux

sauter. This time the conditions were more

favourable and she had committed herself, and
;

gone too far to turn back, before communicating

her decision to her people. Casati had been
dispatched to Rome to arrange for her welcome
there and she now sprang her resolution on the
;

assembled Senate. For three years, she said,

she had been thinking the matter over. It had
been agreed that her cousin, Charles Gustavus,
should succeed her. Now

" I have decided, for many reasons, to

abdicate. My mind is made up, and I shall not
change it. I am not, therefore, asking your
opinion, but only your assistance in settling
matters and arranging for the secure and tranquil
succession of the Prince."

The Senators, naturally, were not hindered

from giving their opinion by the mere fact that
they were not asked for it. They gave it in no
measured terms, speaking of the proposal as an
affront to God, and of those, whoever they might
be, who had counselled it as " treacherous knaves."
But Christina remained firm, sustained by her
religious motive, and threw out mystifying hints.
Her reasons, she said, were only known to God,
but would, in due course, and before long, be
disclosed. And also

" If you knew the secret reason, which for

137
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the present I have to conceal, then my conduct
would appear less strange to you."

It does not appear that they divined her

meaning but they perceived that she meant
;

what she said Ce que femme veut Dieu le veut.

:

They would not allow her to stipulate, as she

wished to do, that, in the event of Charles
Gustavus leaving no direct heir, he should be
succeeded by her young favourite Tott, her —
concern with the Swedish succession must end
with her retirement. They would not permit
her to retain, as she proposed that she should,
the sovereignty, as well as the revenues, of
certain towns and islands, —if she abdicated at

all, she must abdicate completely. But they

fell in with her views in other respects, promising

her a good income, and arranged a suitable

ceremony for her formal resignation of her royal
rights. Or rather, there were two such cere-
monies one in the Diet, and the other in the
:

Senate.
Tlie former, of which Whitelocke has given
us an account, was chiefly remarkable for the
unprepared protest of the so-called Marshal of
—
the Boors, the leader of the peasant party.
He was " a plain country fellow, in his clouted
shoon and other habits answerable " and he
;

spoke " without any conges or ceremony at

all"—

" O Lord God, Madam, what do you mean to

138
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
do ? It troubles us to hear you speak of for-
saking those that love you as well as we do.
Can you be better than you are ? You are Queen
of all these countries, and if you leave this large
"
kingdom, where will you get such another ?

That was his artless beginning ; and the end

of his appeal was similar

" Your father was an honest gentleman and

a good king, and very stirring in the world we ;

obeyed him and loved him as long as he lived ;

and you are his own child, and have governed

us very well, and we love you with all our hearts ;

and the Prince is an honest gentleman, and when

his time comes we shall be ready to do our duties
to him as we do to you but as long as you live
;

we are not willing to part with you, and, there-

fore, I pray, Madam, do not part with us."

Havingso spoken, the peasant " waddled up

to the Queen," and " took her hand and shook
it heartily," and then "pulled out of his pocket
a foul handkerchief, and wiped the tears from
his eyes." His speech seemed to Whitelocke,
as he afterwards said to Christina, to be " pure
and clear natural eloquence, without any forced
strain " ; and then this dialogue ensued

Queen :
"
think he spake from his heart."
I
Whitelocke " I believe he did, and acted so
:

too, especially when he wiped his eyes."

139
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Queen :
" He showed his affection to me in
that posture more than greater men did in their
spheres."

But was no more to be moved by

Christina
the mean man's tears than by the great men's
copy-book morahty. Nor was her purpose
shaken by her mother's tears, though her mother
" cried all night." It took so little to make Marie-
Eleonore cry all night : she was a helpless
creature, and that was her ordinary way of
confessing her helplessness. Christina would
probably have liked to shake her, just as a —
brilliant, self-willed, and self-reliant Girton girl
would often like to shake a weeping and un-
reasonable Victorian mother. As it was, she
endured the tears, offered no explanations, and
continued her arrangements for disposing of her
own life as she thought best.
The final scene took place on June 6, 1654,
in solemn and impressive circumstances the ;

Act of Abdication being read aloud in her

presence and that of Charles Gustavus and the
Senate. The Act whereby her successor guaran-
teed her revenues was also read and both Acts ;

were duly and solemnly signed. That done,

Christina was invested, for the last time, with
the royal robes. She was apparelled in a simple
white robe, and wore her crown in her left ;

hand was the sceptre, and in her right hand

the emblematic golden ball. A sword and a
golden key were carried before her by the Grand
140
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Marshal and the Lord High Treasurer and ;

the procession thus formed took its slow way

into the great Hall of the Palace, where were
assembled the Ministers, the Nobility, and the
Members of the Court.
Christina took her place, for the last time,
on the throne a magnificent silver throne, the
:

gift of Magnus de la Gardie, once her favourite

and now her enemy. Behind her were
bitter
stationed the Chamberlain and the Captain of
the Royal Guard. Beside her stood Charles
Gustavus, liabited in black, as if to indicate that
he thought of the day of his preferment as a
day of mourning. The Act of Abdication was
read yet again and handed to him. Then Count
Brahe—he who had most vehemently opposed
her abdication, speaking of it as an affront to
—
God was summoned to remove the crown
from her head. He would not so she removed
;

it herself and placed it in his hands. She also

divested herself of the other royal insignia,
which were laid upon a table, all except her—
mantle, which her courtiers cut to tatters, in
order that each of them might keep a scrap of
it as memorial of her.

Her farewell address followed. One finds

little in the report of beyond the protestation
it

that, living in difficult times, she had tried to

do her duty, and felt no qualms of conscience,
but was confident that her cousin would follow
worthily in the steps of her father, Gustavus
Adolphus. Her listeners nevertheless were
141
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
moved to tears, albeit very different tears
from those which had been shed by Marie-
—
Eleonore, amazed at the scale of values which
let her abandon of her own free will an exalted
station to which so many would have been
willing to wade through blood and slaughter.
The rest was the usual, and inevitable in-
terchange of compliments compliments to
:

Christina on the great qualities which she had

shown ;compliments to Charles Gustavus on
the great qualities which he was presumed to
possess compliments to the Ministers and
;

Senators on the sagacity with which they had

helped, and would doubtless continue to help,
in the direction of affairs. Charles Gustavus
was crowned the same afternoon, quietly as —
was proper to an occasion which was more sad
than joyous and Christina's last royal act was
;

to command a general release of prisoners.

She left Upsala the same night, setting out in
a storm of rain in her great haste to get away.
Charles Gustavus pressed her to remain a little
longer; but she would not. "How can you
wish me to ? " she asked. " How can you
expect me to stay to see another enjoying the
power which was so lately mine ? " But she
had other than sentimental reasons for hurrying
her departure. There were those who wished to
detain her on the ground that, as her income
was derived from the Swedish taxpayers, she
must not be allowed to go abroad to spend it.
The report of her conversion had also got about
142
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and the clergy talked of detaining her in Sweden in
the sacred cause of Protestantism. But she had
not descended from the Swedish throne in order
to become a Swedish subject : her desire was
not for a narrower but for a larger life. So
she must make haste, even though she fibbed
in order to account for her hurry, giving out,
as she had already given out to Whitelocke,
that she was going to Spa to take the waters.
What she really wanted, however, was not
medicinal treatment, but leisure for an artistic
and intellectual life. Sedes hcec solio potior
was the motto of a medal which she caused to
be struck in celebration of her retirement a :

motto signifying that a place on Parnassus was

more to her than a seat on a throne. She set
the same view forth in letters which she wrote,
in the brief interval between her abdication
and her departure from Swedish soil, to the
Prince de Condc and to the members of the
French Academy of Letters

" I will confess to you " (she wrote to the

former) " that the leisure which I have so in-
tensely desired has been bought at a high price
but I never regret having paid that price
shall
for it, and shall never blacken an action for
which I am very pleased with myself by any
base repentance."

To the latter she wrote

"I have always had the highest esteem for

143
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
you because I have always had the highest
esteem for virtue and I doubt not that you
;

will show me as much friendship in the solitude

of my private life as you exhibited towards me
when I was on the throne. My love of literature,
which I shall now be able to cultivate at my
ease and leisure, leads me to hope that you will
sometimes communicate your works to me :

works always worthy of your high reputation,

and written in the language which will generally,
henceforth, be mine."

Thus she took steps to prepare herself a

welcome in France, as she had previously taken
steps to prepare herself a welcome in Rome.
There remained nothing but to gather her house-
hold together, and ride, suitably escorted, to
the frontier. Once more Charles Gustavus pressed
—
her to stay, and even to stay as his consort
but she would not. If she had wished to marry,
she said, she would not have abdicated first
not a very gracious reply, if correctly reported,
but reports of that sort are never very trust-
worthy. And so over the Danish border to
liberty. Her first act, after crossing the border,
was to have her long hair cut short, and dress
herself as a boy. Her first speech is said to have
been
" Free, at
last, and out of a country which I
"
hope never to see again !

Which meant, of course, not that she really

144
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
hated Sweden, or had left painful memories in
the country of her birth ; but that she rejoiced
beyond measure at the prospect, now at last,
after so many delays,
on the point of being realised,
of living her own life in her own way, untroubled
by the harassing cares of State, and unrestricted
by tiresome conventions.

145
 CHAPTER XIII
What the world thought of abdication — Her
Christina's travels
— Denmark — Hamburg— Brussels— Her private reception
into the Church Brussels — Her manner of
at there
life

Her delight at her escape from Lutheran sermons

There were those who compared Christina's

departure to that of the Israelites, who did
not leave Egypt without first spoiling the
Egyptians. Careless of money, she had flung it
about without counting it but others have
;

counted it for her. At the time of her accession

the expenses of the Royal Household absorbed
only about three per cent, of the total revenue
of the country at the time of her departure
;

she was spending twenty per cent, of that revenue

on herself and her friends. It was not that she
was deliberately extravagant, but merely that
she liked to do things stylishly and be generous.
She distributed pensions as freely as titles
and she distributed those so lavishly that even
her tailor got one.
Her " collections," too, had cost her a great
deal. She collected books, pictures, statues,
cameos, miniatures, furniture, bric-a-brac, —
everything which could appeal to a collector
of literary and artistic taste; and though
146
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the collections were paid for with public money,
she regarded them as her private property. She
packed them all up, and took them with her, or, —
rather, had them dispatched to await arrival.
It was as though an English sovereign should
abdicate and carry off the contents of the
National Gallery and the British and South
Kensington Museums, as well as the Crown Jewels
and the furniture and fittings of Windsor Castle
and Buckingham Palace. The proceeding, thus
stated, sounds monstrous but the line between
;

the property of the State and the property of the

sovereign was not, in those days, very clearly
drawn and the best excuse for the removal is
;

that the Swedes permitted it. The treasures of

art were to them merely knick-knacks, if Chris- —
tina wanted her knick-knacks, she was welcome
to them.
—
She did want them, they were a part of the
necessary stock-in-trade for the magnificent life
of self-development which she had planned.
That their removal arrested the progress of
Sweden towards the higher culture is likely
enough but the flowers of culture were, as we
;

have seen, exotic growths in Sweden. Christina

had planted them and if Christina did not
;

remain to water them they would languish.

That, probably, was her countrymen's view of
the matter as well as hers. At all events, she
went off well provided with the apparatus of
culture : travelling simply at first, so as not to
excite remark, but with no intention of confining
147
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
herself to the simple life for ever. Not sim-
plicity but self-development was the end she
contemplated and though the two things are
;

compatible for some of us, Christina did not

identify them. She aspired to develop, perfect,
and express herself in public, — in the centre, as it

were, of the European stage ; and she meant that

stage to be nobly and artistically set, so that all
the world might wonder.
And of course the world did wonder, though
not all the world approved. The conversion,
when made known, divided opinion sharply
and even before it was made known the air was
thick at once with eulogistic elegiacs and savage
satires. " Where is this lady," the Prince de
Conde asked, " who has so lightly abandoned the
crown for which we others fight, pursuing it
without attaining it throughout our lives ? "
" Woe upon our Muses," wrote the scholar
Medonius, "if we fail to transmit to posterity
this unprecedented action on the part of an
incomparable Queen, whose grandeur of mind
surpasses all that history tells us about the heroes
of antiquity "!
" She resigned because she felt
that her subjects were unworthy of her," de-
clared the Jesuit Father d'Auvrigny. " I am so
astonished at what I hear that I feel as if I were
dream," exclaimed Bochart.
living in a He could
not but approve, he said, her contempt for the
glories of thisworld he rejoiced at the prospect
;

that her travels might give him the opportunity

of seeing her again but yet he had his doubts
;

148
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" My heart bleedswhen I think that she is
voluntarily depriving herself of so many means of
—
doing good, never to be recovered when once
she has go of them. She will regret what she
let
has done a thousand times when it is too late
and the damage is irremediable, if only because
of the unfavourable comments which most people
will make. For most people are only too glad
of a pretext for barking at the heels of the great."

Tlie great scholar evidently considered that

the patronage and endowment of scholars was
the noblest work of queens. Foreseeing the ex-
tinction, or at least the diminution, of this source
of supply for humanists who turned out elegant
copies of complimentary verse, he viewed the
prospect with a divided mind. He perceived
Christina's superiority to conventional ideals ;

but he also could not help thinking of her as one

who had put her hand to the plough and then
turned back. Mme
de Longueville, who heard
the news from Bourdelot, had no such need
for mixing her emotions. She wrote to the
physician in praise of " the heroic act of our
great Queen "

" She is, incomparable " (she added).

in truth,
" One may justly say that, in quitting one Crown,
she has shown herself worth of all the Crowns in
the world, and that, by ceasing to reign over her
own subjects, she has established her title to
reign over the earth. Nothing is easier than to
149
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
quit a throne which has exposed its occupant
to a long series of misfortunes . . . but there is
no virtue more exalted than that of the sovereign
who retires voluntarily from a throne which is
well established and despises a great position
which has offered none but agreeable experi-
ences. . . .

"... Should Her Majesty's conversion come

as the crown and climax of her admirable self-
abnegation, we shall be able to affirm that no
human being has ever attained to a more dazzling
glory."

—
So the world talked all the world talking
at once with a confusing noise. Christina's
business was everybody's business and she ;

was not displeased that it should be so. If

she was earnest, she also liked to be interesting ;

so much so that even a modern historian with the

keen insight of Arvede Barine has raised the
question whether she was not deliberately playing
a practical joke on Europe.
She was not exactly doing that but it ;

delighted her, as it does sometimes delight clever

people, to find her proceedings presenting an
enigma to her intellectual inferiors and she ;

soon received a compliment of the kind which

she valued. She began her travels, as has been
mentioned, in male attire, giving out that she was
the son of Count Dohna and the Queen of
;

Denmark, devoured by curiosity, disguised her-

self as a servant-maid, and waited on the strange
150
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
traveller in a Danish inn. The disguise was
penetrated ; and Christina gratified her sense
of humour by telling the servant exactly what
she thought of the Queen.
The next stage was Hamburg, where Christina
arrived on July 10, and remained about three
weeks. She there accepted the hospitality of a
Jewish banker, and was denounced from the
pulpits of the town for doing so. Her reply
that Jesus Christ was Himself a Jew and had,
—
throughout His life, consorted with Jews was a
reasonably adequate rejoinder. It so impressed
one of the clergy that he now preached in the con-
trary sense, with the inevitable references to the
Queen of Sheba but even for him there was a
;

painful surprise in store. He received a gold

chain in token of Christina's admiration of his
sermon ; but presently he discovered that she
had left a book behind her in her pew. He looked
at it,— it was a Virgil. The Queen who had
honoured him was so little devout that she had
been reading Virgil while he was preaching.
A few days later, after having been enter-
tained by the Landgrave of Hesse, Christina
resumed her male attire, and set out again on her
journey, in top-boots, wearing a black wig, and
carrying a carbine over her shoulder and a sword
hanging at her side. In that costume she visited
the Jesuits' College at Miinster, to which she
presented one hundred ducats, after jesting with
the Fathers on the subject of Jesuit morality
and the Pauline cunning with which they were
151
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" all things to all men." She kept up her
masculine character by pretending to make love
to a girl whom she met on the road and she
;

proceeded by way of Deventer, Amesfort, and

Utrecht to Antwerp, where she once more
acknowledged her identity and consented to
receive visitors.
There was no hurry :those were days when
things went slowly in peace as well as in war. At
a date when a war could last for thirty years
the preparations for a change of heart could
very well be spun out for a twelvemonth,
especially when the heart appertained to the
august bosom of a queen. There was, as it were,
a " protocol " of conversion to be arranged
messengers had to go to and fro, crossing Europe
and returning, to settle the how and the when and
the where. The Pope happened to die in the
midst of the transaction and the result of the
;

conclave for the election of his successor had to be

awaited. The electing Cardinals were not men
to be hustled ; and it took them about eight
months to promote Alexander vii. to the throne
of Innocent x. Christina was quite willing to
wait, enjoying her new liberty at leisure.
Her only trouble, at the moment, was as to
her dignity and the homage due to it. She was,
not unnaturally, sensitive to social slights ; and
there were no undisputed precedents deter-
mining the degree of ceremony with which a
queen in partibus should be approached. As
Queen of Sweden, Christina had often thrown
152
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
etiquette to the winds ; as a queen in exile, she
was more exacting. It was one thing, she felt,
to unbend, and quite another to be unbent.
Hence trouble when the Prince de Conde pro-
posed to call. He was Christina's hero she had :

told Wiitelocke that she ranked him next to

Cromwell among great men, and she had —
probably told his countrymen that she ranked
him above Cromwell. But she would not
agree to descend to the foot of the stairs
to meet him ; and he said that he would
not call unless she did. When she presently
met him, by accident, in a public place, she was
observed to converse with him " decorously but
coldly," remarking " Cousin, who would have
:

believed, ten years ago, that we were destined to

"
meet like this ?
A similar
meeting with Elizabeth of Bohemia
and her daughter is said to have been frustrated

by a similar reason. They went to the theatre,

it is coming
related, in order to stare at Christina,
specially from The Hague for the purpose, but
would not call for fear lest they should not be
received as royalties. There may be a grain of
truth in the story but one suspects another
;

motive that the memory of Descartes fell as

:

a cold shadow between them. We have seen

already how Christina took Princess Elizabeth's
philosopher away from her, what glorious —
apparel the philosopher put on when he left the
one lady for the other, and how fruitless had been
his endeavour to make their common affection
153
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
for himself a bond of friendship between them.
We may fairly suppose that Elizabeth had neither
forgotten nor forgiven we may even guess that,
;

in herinmost heart, she charged Christina with

having killed Descartes by so cruelly requiring
him to lecture on metaphysics in a cold library
at a ridiculously early hour,—and that she now
desired not to show courtesy, but merely to satisfy
curiosity.
Another visitor was Count Tott, the —
" favourite " of Whitelocke's narrative. He came
as an Ambassador, charged to deliver good
advice :to implore Christina to remain a
Protestant, and to return to Sweden when she
was tired of travelling. She received him agree-
ably, but did not commit herself, having quite
other plans. It is said —
one does not know with
what truth —that
Tott had, by this time, been
succeeded in her favour by Pimentelli, the
Spanish Ambassador, who was the confidant
of her intention to 'vert. Some of her letters to
Pimentelli were opened in the course of their
passage through the Low Countries and Boreel, ;

the Dutch Ambassador at Paris, remarked that

" they would certainly have been taken for love
letters by any one unacquainted with the Queen's
virtuous character," being " filled with the
strongest expressions which the most ardent
passion could employ." He does not quote,
however and Pimentelli was a serious gentle-
;

man of forty-eight so one must not attach too

;

much importance to this scandal.

154
//rv// //ir /)niiitiiu/ /i/ . //r///> . //(t/j /// ///r Jotii>/f
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
What one does know is that Christina had
arranged to meet Pimentelli at Brussels, and that
her journey to Brussels was of the nature of a
royal progress. She travelled by water, on a
barge armed like a gunboat and decorated as if
for a pageant. Sightseers lined the canal banks
and cheered soldiers saluted bells pealed and
; ;

bonfires blazed ; and the distinguished guest

entered the city after nightfall through a
triumphal arch, illuminated in her honour.
Then, at last, she forswore Lutheranism ; and
though the ceremony of abjuration was supposed
to be private, it was not really so. The guns
were fired at the instant of her recantation of
Protestant heresy ; and those chroniclers who
—
say that the coincidence was accidental or due
—
to a special dispensation of Providence cannot
be believed.
Then the question arose whether this
private renunciation would suffice to satisfy
the Pope a matter which could not be settled
:

until the new Pope was elected. The answer,

when, at last, it came, was in the negative. If
Christina wanted to visit Rome, and to be
received with distinction there, she must come
as a convert open and avowed. That was the
last word of Alexander vii. —a pious Pope who
took religion seriously even the King of Spain
:

besought him in vain to relax the rigour of his

ruling. So Cliristina consented, even at the
risk that the Swedes would punish her by re-
ducing her allowance ; though whether she did
155
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
so from a sense of duty or from a passionate
desire to live in Romeone must be content to
guess. Rome, at any rate, was the only place
in which it quite suited her dignity to take up
her permanent abode since the Pope was the
;

only sovereign whom other sovereigns bowed

to as greater than themselves.
So it was arranged that Christina should be
received publicly into the Roman Church at
Innsbruck ; and she formed her and made
suite
her preparations for the journey. But mean-
while she enjoyed herself by no means living,
;

so far as outward appearances went, after the

manner of one who has, in modern parlance,
" found religion." She herself pictures her way
of life in a letter to her friend, Ebba Sparre

" I am very well, and have been received

with every honour, and get on well with every
one except the Prince de Conde, going nowhere
except to Court and to the theatre. My prin-
cipal occupations are to eat well, to sleep well,
to study a little, to chat and to laugh, to enter-
tain myself with French, Spanish, and Italian
comedies, and to get through the time pleas-
antly. Above all, no more sermons for me !

I have the profoundest contempt for all their

preachers, holding, with Solomon, that one
should eat, drink, and be merry, and that all
the rest is vanity."

A picture which derives a certain measure of

156
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
support from an anecdote indignantly repeated
by a discontented Protestant divine
" Her Majesty " (wrote the divine), " being
asked whether she had no ministers of rehgion
or preachers in her suite, replied that she had
not. Since departure from Sweden, she
her
said, she had taken the opportunity of getting
rid of all the people who were of no use to her."

Beside which story one should place that of

her visit to the Jesuits of Louvain. They pro-
posed to place her, they said, on the panel of
saints, next to Saint Brigitta of Sweden ; whereto
she replied : "I would much prefer to find my
name on a panel of philosophers."
It does not sound very religious but there
;

is no need to be shocked. Catholics do, on the

whole, take their religion in a much more joyous
and worldly manner than Protestants. Their
monks and nuns may —some of —
them specialise
in austerity but they do not expect every
;

Catholic to be a specialist in such matters. If

the Church has a use for fanatics, it has also a
use for those who are penetrated by the joie de
vivre. In return for their profession of faith
it offers them certain guarantees, in virtue of
which they may dance and divert themselves
without fear of the divine indignation. Their
countenances, in consequence, are on the whole
pleasanter than those of persons whom evan-
gelical revivalists have frightened into fleeing
from the wrath to come.
157
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Christina, at all events, accepted Catholicism
in that pleasant spirit ; keeping her religion,
in —
a sense, to herself, accepting the principles
of the faith, but leaving the details to the Pope
and other professional theologians. There really
was no need for her to listen to sermons for ;

why should any man or woman of ability be

bothered to listen to the long-winded discourses
of intellectual inferiors ? She had heard it all,
dozens of times, before and she could say it
;

all more effectively herself. That was why

she had so often talked in church, or played
with her dogs, or read Virgil, or tried to go
to sleep. The course of staying away from
church altogether seemed preferable, and she
adopted it, having better ways of spending the
time.
We have seen how she spent most of her
time. Cardinal Mazarin encouraged her so to
spend it by sending a special company of French
comedians to Brussels for her entertainment.
She also occupied herself in enlarging her library,
with the result that the scholar Vossius found
further opportunities of stealing her books.
And so the days went by until, at last, on
September 22, 1655, she and her train of 221
persons — including five women, three monks,
and three musicians — set out from Brussels, and
wound its leisurely way along the road to
Rome.

158
 CHAPTER XIV
Christina's public reception into the Church at Innsbruck
Her journey to Rome — Her reception and life there
Cardinal Colonna loves her in vain — Roman Society objects
to her manners — Her departure for France

Christina could now feel that the eyes of Europe

were upon her which was what she wanted,
;

though, no doubt, she wanted other things as

well. The Pope's Legate thought it worth while
—
to count her retinue, the dispatch giving the
result of his enumeration is still in the Vatican
Archives. It is as complete as a census-paper,
giving us the names and nationalities, not only
of the gentlemen in attendance, but also of the
grooms, the coachmen, the musicians, and the
monks. One likes to picture the Legate going
round with a notebook and entering the par-
ticulars. Many Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
and Belgian noblemen, it appears, jumped at
the opportunity of taking a free trip to Italy in
Christina's suite Pimentelli was the only one of
;

the company who paid his own expenses.

Nothing happened on the way, nothing, at —
any rate, which need detain us. Charles ii. is
said to have met Cliristina at Frankfurt but ;

we have no information about the interview.

159
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
The cavalcade was escorted for some distance
out of Brussels by the Archduke Leopold, and
was met by other archdukes, together with
archduchesses, as it approached Tyrol. At
Innsbruck arrived the Legate Holsteinius, him- —
selfa convert from Lutheranism, and now a
Canon of St. Peter's and Librarian of the Vatican,
—a man of learningand culture, and one who
could be relied upon to talk to Christina, not
only of the beauty of holiness, but also of the
beauty of the art treasures of the Catholic
capital.
Under his agreeable auspices the solemn act
of renunciation was performed. Attired in plain
black silk, with a rich diamond cross blazing on
her breast, Christina knelt at the altar and read,
in a firm voice, the required repudiation of here-
tical opinions, Nicene Creed, and
recited the
declared her faith in the real presence, the
doctrine of purgatory, the right of the Church
to interpret the Scriptures, its power to remit
sins and grant indulgences, and all the other
articles of Catholic belief. It is not to be sup-
posed that she had any more personal conviction
of the truth of the particulars than a schoolboy
has of the truth of the propositions appertaining
to those higher mathematics which he has not
yet begun to study but she agreed that the
;

Pope knew about them, and must not be con-

tradicted. In order that she might not forget
whether she did, or did not, believe this, that, or
the other doctrinal item, a copy of her signed
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
declaration, witnessed by the municipal authori-
ties, was left with her.
Then came the sermon, preached by a Jesuit
on the appropriate text " Hearken, O daughter,
:

and consider, incline thine ear Forget also :

thine own people and thy father's house." For

once in her life, we may believe, Christina
listened to a sermon instead of playing with the
dogs and then began the demonstrations of joy
;

over the sinner who had repented. The cannon

roared the bonfires were lighted
; the best ;

Italian artists performed a musical comedy.

One feels, when one hears of it, much as one
might feel if one heard that a bishop had con-
cluded an Ordination Service with a Cinderella
Dance though it appears that an officer of the
;

Court apologised to the Legate, saying that, if

longer notice of the ceremony had been given,
a more appropriate entertainment would have
been prepared.
Perhaps it is not true that Christina said,
after the performance was over " Gentlemen, :

it is most proper that you should entertain me

with a comedy after I have entertained you with

a farce." Leibnitz gravely remarks that the
speech, if true, exhibited a regrettable lack of
decorum and other biographers have repeated
;

his comment with equal gravity and the ex-

pression of a sincere hope that the story is a
fabrication ; but it seems just as reasonable to
interpret it as thehomage paid by humour to
incongruity. One can imagine that, if a bishop
L 161
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
were to hurry the deacons off to Daly's or
the Gaiety as soon as he had ordained them,
an analogous criticism might rise unbidden to
the lips of a moderately pious man.
But let that pass. Christina, in any case,
had crossed the Rubicon and she lost no time
;

in writing to inform Charles Gustavus that she

had done so

" Sir and Brother, —

I have arrived here
in safety, andhave received the permission
I
and orders of His Holiness to declare myself
that which I long have been. It is a great
happiness to me to obey him and the glory
;

of doing so is more to me than that of ruling

over the dominions which are now yours. You
ought to approve, seeing that, though you think
my choice of a religion a bad one, it is very
advantageous to you, and has in no way altered
my affection for Sweden, or my sentiments of
friendship for yourself."

She wrote other letters on the same subject,

which we need not trouble to quote and then,
;

after a stay of only aweek at Innsbruck, she set

out for Italy, on December 8.
Once more her journey was like a con-
queror's progress, and of a splendour which
increased as she proceeded. The Pope sent a
message begging her to travel slowly in order
that she might not arrive before his arrangements
for her worthy reception were complete ;he also
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
sent his own coach to meet her. Wherever she
arrived, she passed under triumphal arches, and
saw cities illuminated in her honour. At Bologna
there were fetes and public games at Ancona a
;

representation of the seven hills of Rome, with

a river of wine to represent the Tiber, and far
more was thus made of Christina as a Queen in
self-chosen exile than had ever been made of
her as a Queen on a throne. Such pomp and
flattery might well have turned the head of so
young a woman and all the evidence goes to
;

show that she had not embraced religion with a

humble and contrite heart, but with the settled
purpose of making a sensational display.
A woman with a humble and contrite heart
does not go to church to receive the grace of
confirmation attended by a guard of honour,
riding astride on a magnificently caparisoned
horse, without a riding-habit, wearing riding-
breeches, gorgeously embroidered with gold lace.
Yet that was how Christina made her formal
entry into Rome. It was in riding-breeches,
thus embellished, and a richly feathered hat,
that she knelt before the high altar at St.
Peter's, and, after the Pope's hands had been
laid upon her head, received the sacrament.
One does not know whether it cost the Pope any
effort to tell her, as he is said to have done, that
there were (no doubt) even greater festivities in
heaven than on earth at the spectacle of so
magnificent an adhesion to the faith. He may
have been dazzled, as men sometimes are, by
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the unexpected, though inappropriate, glory
of her apparel ; or he may have had, like
Christina herself, a sense of humour.
At all events, he invited her to a banquet,
bidding her sit at his right hand, on a chair which
was almost a throne, and had been made ex-
pressly for the occasion. A Jesuit preached
during the repast ; and as Christina made an
apposite remark and asked an apposite question,
we may take it that this was a second occasion
on which she actually listened to a sermon
instead of waiting impatiently for the bene-
diction. After the discourse was over there was
" a little music," albeit of a more decorous
character than at Innsbruck and the next days
;

were given to sightseeing. Christina went to

see churches, galleries, printing-presses. A few
well-chosen words of flattery were printed in her
presence in eight languages ; and, at one of the
colleges, verbal compliments were paid to her in
twenty-two languages, including Syriac, Coptic,
Armenian, and Chaldaic.
It was a promising beginning and, for some
;

weeks, everything was couleur de rose. The

Cardinals vied with each other in showing their
convert the sights, and the leaders of society
competed in the provision of entertainments
for her. The Barberini, for instance, organised
an opera in her honour, at a cost of 40,000
—
crowns, an opera in which horses, bulls, and
elephants appeared upon the stage and she
;

herself realised her dream of forming a salon.

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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
It met once a week at her lodging, for the
reading of poetry and the discussion of moral
problems, with a musical recitation to follow.
" If only I could see you," she wrote to Ebba
Sparre, " I should now be perfectly happy."
Yet that was not quite true, — or, at all events,
did not remain true for very long ; and there
were various little rifts within the lute which
had nothing to do with Christina's enforced
separation from Ebba Sparre. The day came
— and was not very long in coming when —
the Roman nobility found the Queen's manner
too haughty for their taste, and the Pope
noticed things which compelled him to doubt
whether his royal convert was quite such a
credit to him as he had innocently expected
her to be.
One need not make too much of the apparent
haughtiness, —very likely was only apparent,
it

and only the result of the conflict between the

manners and tone of northern and southern
society. It was less true in those days than
in ours that " good society is good society
—
everywhere," the North was more sincere than
ceremonious, and the South more ceremonious
than sincere. But the Pope's case was good,
even if the nobility's case was bad. He had
expected a crowned saint, exhaling the odour
of sanctity, —one who said long prayers, and
did good works, and set a notable example.
He found that he liad taken to his bosom a
—
crowned dilettante, a woman singularly free of
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
speech, who laughed at those who sought to
protect her modesty by draping nude statues,
who jested and talked during divine service,
and who, as a final impropriety, was turning
the heads of the Cardinals.
The case of Cardinal Colonna was particularly
shocking. It was the talk of Rome, not only
that Cardinal Colonna was in love with Christina,
but also that he was making himself ridiculous
about her; and it is not clear whether
Christina's offence was the less or the greater
in the Pope's eyes because she laughed at the
Cardinal. In any case, she did laugh at him
when he powdered his hair in order to make
himself more prepossessing, and appeared as a
troubadour underneath her bedroom window,
singing a serenade. Such tokens of esteem,
however innocent in themselves, were obviously
unbecoming in a prelate and Alexander vii.
;

naturally felt that he must act. He ordered

the Cardinal to leave Rome and he sent
;

Christina a rosary with his compliments and a

suggestion that she should her beads instead
tell

of disturbing public worship with frivolous con-

—
versation. Her reply that she had not become
a Catholic for the purpose of telling beads
was not of a nature to conciliate him.
Moreover, Christina was badly served, the —
Archives are full of complaints of the extra-
ordinary proceedings of the members of her suite
and Court, preferred by the gentleman appointed
to do the honours of the Farnese Palace in
166
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
which she was established. They tried to turn
some of the apartments into a pubHc gambling-
hell. Finding a portion of the Palace in-
adequately warmed, they pulled doors off the
hinges, to make a fire. They tore the gold
lace off the draperies and hangings, and sold
it they also got rid of valuable silver candle-
;

sticks, and replaced them with candlesticks of

silver-gilt; and they even pillaged Pimentelli's
coach while he was calling on the Queen. Nor
were menials the only offenders. It was found
necessary to watch the gentlemen who accom-
panied the Queen when she went to inspect
museums, for fear lest valuable medals should
be extracted from their cases.
There was a further source of complications
in the internal jealousies of the suite a French ;

faction being pitted against the Spanish faction.

Christina had changed her religion under Spanish
auspices and now the Spaniards presumed to
;

remonstrate with her for displaying friendship

for When she disregarded their
their rivals.
remonstrances, some of them circulated
calumnies about her and then there was a
;

—
row one might reasonably call it a vulgar row
— resulting in changes in the personnel of her
household. The Pope himself was mixed up
in the row and Christina thought it necessary
;

to tell him that, though she submitted to him

in all matters of conscience, she considered
herself the sole guardian of her own honour
a rejoinder which must have illuminated him
167
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
still further as to the kind of convert that he
had made.
The principal Spaniard dismissed was the
Grand Equerry, Antonio della Cueva and he
;

was not dismissed without a scene, of which

Christina herself has written an excited account.
He appears to have thrown the blame for the
slanders which had been circulated upon his
wife, and to have said that it was absurd to
attach too much importance to a woman's
gossip but Christina was not to be appeased.
;

She said that if della Cueva would like to return

to Flanders, she would willingly give him per-
mission to do so; he replied that he should
like to start at once, and retired in dudgeon
to the Spanish Embassy. Christina, by way
of saving his face, sent him seven horses as
a farewell gift. He accepted the gift but
sulked, speaking of the donor as " the woman
of the lightest reputation in the world " ; while
Christina, not to be outdone, wrote to the King
of Spain to say that it was only out of regard
for His Majesty's feelings that she had refrained
from causing an officer bearing his commission to
be thrown out of her presence by her lackeys,
and beaten from the Palace with sticks. In
his place, and in place of the other Spaniards
who departed with him, she gave household
appointments to three Italians Monaldeschi,
:

and the brothers Francesco and Ludovico

Santinelli, —
all of whom we shall meet again.

Altogether, therefore, Christina's experiences

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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
at Rome were, after the first glow of excite-
ment had subsided, disappointing. There were
quarters in which, instead homage, she
of
received the cold shoulder ; there were leaders
"
of society who even went so far as to " cut
her. At one of her receptions, to which she
had invited forty guests, no single guest turned
up. She still had some good friends among the
Cardinals. Notably she had formed a warm
friendship for Cardinal Azzolino —another whom
we meet again. But Roman Society as
shall
a whole was lacking in cordiality and there ;

was yet another cause of annoyance the :

expected supplies did not arrive from Sweden

with a regularity commensurate with Christina's
extravagant expenditure. The desire grew upon
her to rake money together and depart on a
fresh journey.
A commissioner sent to Sweden to see
about the money was only partially suc-
cessful. It was no part, indeed, of Charles
Gustavus's programme to dock Christina's
allowance because she had gone over to Rome.
Strict Lutheran though he was, he did not
regard short commons as theremedyright
for false doctrine. But he was at war with
Poland, and needed all his ready money for
military expenses consequently he could not
;

entertain the idea of paying a lump sum down

in commutation of the allowance, but could
only promise to do his best, and make a small
payment on account. It occurred to Christina
169
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that, if she went to Sweden herself, she might
get better terms, —especially if she went there
by way of France. Sweden was claiming
moneys from France, — arrears of subsidies due
for services rendered during the Thirty Years
War and Christina maintained that, as she
;

had been Queen of Sweden when the under-

taking was entered into, she could take the
money and give a valid discharge therefor. At
all events, she proposed to see Cardinal Mazarin
—
and try so she set off, the date of her departure
;

being hurried by an outbreak of the plague in

Rome.
The lack of pence was still an obstacle
but she surmounted it by selling her horses and

carriages and pawning a number of her jewels.

Some of them were left, as security for loans,
with noblemen and Cardinals others were ;

deposited in the Mont de Piete. The Pope,

too, sent her a parting gift of 10,000 crowns
—perhaps in order to make sure of her going
and lent her fourfor the sea voyage.
galleys
These sufficed for her diminished suite, now re-
duced to about sixty persons, but including Monal-
deschi, the two Santinellis, that Father Malines
who had assisted in her conversion. Count
Annibale Thiene, Captain Francesco Landini,
and a converted Swede named Davisson, whom
she had engaged as her secretary. Thus
attended, she embarked on July 19, 1656, and
reached Marseilles on August 29.
The departure was a sad one. Both Christina
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and the Pope had lost some of their illusions
and if Alexander vii. submitted to the loss of
his illusions with Christian resignation, Christina
wept over the loss of hers. It was observed, too,
that she continually bent sorrowful eyes over a
miniature portrait which she carried with her.
She showed it to no one but it was understood
;

that it was Cardinal Azzolino's portrait, and

that Christina had left her heart at Rome in
his custody.
Perhaps she had ; for Azzolino was a Cardinal
whom rumour credited with great good fortune in
gallantry. But there is no need to anticipate.
Azzolino's place in this narrative is not yet.

171
 CHAPTER XV
Christina in France — Her interview with Mile de Montpensier
— Her reception in Paris — Her meeting with Mazarin,
Anne of Austria, and Louis xiv., at —
Compiegne Her
attempt to induce Mazarin to make her Queen of Naples
— Her return across the Mont Cenis to Italy

Most of the biographers have treated Christina's

first journey to France as the caprice of a rest-
less woman but Christina had a plan, ^though
;
—
one does not quite know how seriously to take it.
She wanted money, as we have seen but she ;

also wanted something else as well. Why, it

occurred to her to ask, should she not become
Queen of Naples ? Why should not Cardinal
Mazarin make her Queen of Naples ? The
Spaniards were in possession of that kingdom;
but why should not Cardinal Mazarin turn them
out ? It would not be difficult, ^the Duke of —
Modena might be induced to help.
All the details of the intrigue (if intrigue
be the word for it) may be found in M. de Bildt's
Christine de Suede et le Cardinal Azzolino. Most
likely he is right in attributing the scheme to
Christina's nerves and one can trace the steps
;

by which it may have been improvised in an

excited brain. Her need for money would be
met if she could arrange to tap the pockets of
172
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the Neapolitan tax-payers. People had been
—
rude to her or had accused her of being rude
—
to them since her retirement from the throne ;

and, if she found a fresh kingdom, she would

be in a position to snub them. Her Spanish
retainers, in particular, had been rude, —
Pimen-
telli had ceased to call on account of her treat-

ment of her Spanish household and she owed

;

both him and Spain a bad turn in consequence.

One can picture her thinking the matter out
as she travelled the thoughts may even have
;

occupied her while she was eating the " five

hundred crowns' worth of sweetmeats" which
are said to have been presented to her in the
midst of her journey by the ruling authorities
of the Genoese Republic.
It sounds a wild project, perhaps, when thus
expounded but it was not quite so ridiculously
;

fantastic as it seems, — Christina, even when

angry, was too clever to be quite unpractical.
Mazarin, at least, was willing to consider the
proposal, and play with it, using Christina's
ambition as a card to be kept up his sleeve
in case there should be trouble with Spain.
There were negotiations between them on the
subject, more or less serious though his account
;

of those negotiations differs from hers. She

writes of a treaty which she " made " with him ;

he only speaks of a treaty which she " pro-

posed " ; and one can only reconcile the contra-
dictory statements by assuming that his notions
of a treaty were more precise than hers. The
173
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
intrigue, atany rate, excited her agreeably
for several months ; though, in the end, she
got tired of it, apparently because she wanted
to be back at Rome with Azzolino.
Meanwhile her progress through France, in
spite of the dwindling of her retinue, was
hardly less magnificent than her previous progress
through Italy. The Due de Guise was sent to
receive her; and whenever she approached a
town, the magistrates came out to welcome
her, and a competent orator delivered an address.
One of the orators stopped the cavalcade for
the purpose of delivering a sermon upon the
Wrath to Come, supposing that a convert to the
faith would be better pleased with a serious
exhortation than with commonplace compli-
ments ; but Christina made cutting remarks
which convinced him of his mistake, describing
his style as " lugubrious," and refusing him
a private audience.
Her route was through Aix, Montelimar,
Avignon, Lyon, Macon, Dijon, Auxerre, and
Fontainebleau, where Mademoiselle de Mont-
— —
pensier La Grande Mademoiselle came to see
her, and got on reasonably well with her. She
found Christina's manner and appearance odd,
but did not " die of laughing " as she had ex-
pected to do. The principal impression which
she got was that of " a pretty boy," with a pale
face, blue eyes, a nose of aquiline aggressiveness,
and a masculine habit of sprawling in chairs,
and throwing her legs about over their arms
174
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and backs, with imperfect regard
for decorum,
" assuming postures," Mademoiselle writes,
" which were scarcely decent." But her con-
versation was remarkable in manner as well as
matter

" She talked on many subjects ; and whatever

she had to say, she expressed herself agreeably.
Sometimes she fell into profound reveries, and
heaved deep sighs. Then she recovered, like a
person awaking with a start from a dream. In
fact, she was the most extraordinary person. . . .

She offered to patch up my quarrel with the

Court and with His Royal Highness. She said
she would like to see me Queen of France."

Then there was a display of fireworks.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier was frightened,
and Christina laughed at her fears; and the
two ladies compared notes as to their courage.
Mademoiselle said that she could only be brave
—
on critical occasions, Christina that it was the
dream of her life to see a battle but we shall
;

see, in a moment, that Christina was not quite so

brave as she imagined herself to be. A further
incident of the stay at Fontainebleau was that
French ladies greeted Christina with kisses,
drawing forth a satirical remonstrance

" Why on earth are all these women so

anxious to kiss me ? I suppose it is because I
look like a man,"
175
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
And so to Paris, where Christina was once
more to taste the pleasure of creating a great
public sensation ; and thence to Compiegne,
where she was to test her skill in the devious
paths of diplomacy.
Her advent, of course, appealed to the
Parisian passion for looking upon " some new
thing " and both she and they did justice to
;

the great spectacular occasion. Two hundred

thousand sightseers are said to have lined the
streets when she entered the City. She was
apparelled from head to foot in scarlet, and had
black plumes in her hat. She rode astride on a
magnificent white horse, richly caparisoned with
gold and silver, —
a cane in her hand, and pistols
slung from the saddle-bow; and more than a
thousand horsemen formed her escort. The
bourgeoisie of Paris, to the number of fifteen
thousand, were under arms to receive her. The
Governor of Paris and the Provost of the Mer-
chants met her at the City Gate, dismounting
when she came and the Governor began a
;

speech which the cheers of the populace drowned.

He contented himself with pointing to the demon-
strators, and begging that the distinguished
guest would accept their shouts as sufficient
token of the enthusiasm with which Paris bade
her welcome.
Then the procession of honour was formed :

the archers leading, followed by the Governor's

Guards, the City Guards, the representatives of
the Guilds, the dignitaries of the Church and the
176
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
University, and countless other honourable and
ornamental functionaries, —the Due de Guise
They conducted her
riding at Christina's side.
to Notre Dame, where the Dean and Chapter
welcomed her, and a Te Deum was sung in
her honour they conducted her thence to the
;

Louvre Palace, where an apartment had been

prepared for her, with the Marechale de I'Ho-
pitaland many other ladies of distinction to do
the honours and, on the very same evening,
;

she received a deputation from the University,

with the Rector for the spokesman of their
compliments.
The next day came a deputation of the clergy,
with a bishop to present their compliments, and
a deputation of lawyers in red robes, presenting
their compliments through the mouth of the
President of the Paris Parlement, and the
Academicians, on whose behalf Patru pro-
nounced the most flowery of all the eulogies

" The knowledge of languages, to which we

devote our days and nights throughout the best
years of our life, was merely the recreation of
your nursery. The Humane Letters have no
fruit or flower which your royal hands have not
plucked. There is no secret of science which your
keen intelligence has not penetrated. You have
done what very few men have been able to do,
and what no woman has ever before ventured to
attempt to do. And all that, Madam, on the
threshold of life, amid the pomps of a Court, and
M 177
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the hindrances of a royal station. We search
history in vain, to find a parallel. Your . . .

image, when we are deprived of your presence,

will be the most precious object of our con-
templation to it we shall pay our homage, and
:

make our sacrifices. It will reign for ever in our

assemblies, —preside for ever over our meetings."

And so on for several pages ; and then there

followed visits from the representatives of the
Guilds, from the Papal Nuncio, from the Corps
Diplomatique, and from Charles i.'s widowed
Queen, Henrietta Maria, together with her
daughter Mary, Princess of Orange, who told her
a tale of poverty so acute that they had some-
times been obliged, in winter, to sit in a room
without a fire; and then there came Menage,
wit and man of letters, whose privilege it was
to introduce other wits and men of letters and
interesting people generally whom he thought
that Christina would like to know.
Christina and he had already met on paper.
Alluding to their respective " days," she had
written to him that her Wednesdays sent their
kind regards to his Thursdays and she had also
;

invited him, though he had not accepted the

invitation, to " meet her half-way " at Brussels.
Now he figured as the Master of the Ceremonies
at her literary receptions; and his mechanical
endeavour to do full justice to the merits of those
whom he presented elicited a spark of her sar-
donic humour. " M. So-and-so, a gentleman of
178
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
distinction," was the formula which he repeated
again and again, until, at last, Christina flashed
out with " Really, really, really
: What a !

number of gentlemen of distinction this M.

!
Menage knows
Presently, however, Christina and her guests
fell to talking literature ; and on that branch of
the subject also. Menage has preserved a char-
acteristic anecdote

" M. Gilbert, the Queen's Resident in France "

(he tells us), " had written a comedy, some of the
lines of which were just a little He read . . .

it in Christina's presence, at the house of

Queen
the Due de Guise and she enjoyed it immensely.
;

The first person whose opinion about the piece

was asked was M. Chapelain. He said what he
thought, as indulgently as he could, but never-
theless let it be seen that he was not blind to
the impropriety of certain passages. Then the
Queen asked me what I thought. I replied, like
a good courtier, that I considered it one of the
best comedies that had ever been written. Her
Majesty was delighted with my criticism. I '

am glad you like it,' she said. '

One can trust
your judgment. As for poor M. Chapelain,
how limited his taste ! II voudrait que tout fut
"
pucelle .'
'

The a fitting pendant to that of the

story is

reading given by Ebba Sparre in Saumaise's sick-

room. It shows us, yet again, that Christina was
179
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
not easily put out of countenance and we find a
;

confirmatory illustration of this characteristic in

the reports of her behaviour at Notre Dame.
Just as she had engaged Cardinals in conversation
during divine service at Rome, so she engaged
Bishops in conversation during the celebration of
Mass in Paris ; and her manner of confessing was
not what the devout could regard as edifying.
She refused to confess to any ecclesiastic of less
degree than a Bishop and when the Bishop of
;

Amiens was hurriedly fetched to hear her con-

fession, she stared him in the face, instead of
drooping her eyes, throughout the whole recital
of her sins. It was the opinion of Mile de
Montpensier, from whose Memoirs the story is
taken, that a really humble and contrite heart
would have found expression in a more contrite
and humble demeanour.
And would a penitent with a really humble
and contrite heart have insisted on paying a visit
to Ninon de Lenclos,
—
" a young lady called
Ninon," as the prim Mme de Motteville puts it,
" celebrated for her vices, her loose life, and her
wit ? " One cannot say; but Mme de Motteville
was not the only Frenchwoman who was shocked
when Christina did so. There were those who com-
plained that Ninon seemed to be the only French-
woman in whom Christina took any interest
and there are biographers who believe that Ninon
owed to Christina's intercession in high places
her release from the Convent in which she had
been shut up to repent of her frivolities. Nothing
180
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
authentic is preserved of the conversation, how-
ever, except Ninon's mot that the Precieuses
:

Ridicules were " the Jansenists of love."

Even those, however, who criticised her
choice of friends admitted that Christina " con-
quered all hearts " at Paris. She seemed to
know everything that it was necessary for her
to know in order to be liked. When a noble-
man was presented to her, he always found her
familiar with his family history, and acquainted
with his armorial bearings, his exploits in
and his literary and
gallantry, artistic tastes.
She knew what pictures were in private col-
lections better than did the collectors ; she knew
more about the contents of the public collections
—
than did the curators, actually making and
winning a wager that a certain precious jewel
would be found in the Sainte-Chapelle at Saint-
Denis. And, with all that, she " made herself
—
very agreeable, especially with men." Young
Louis XIV. and his brother were so excited by the
reports which reached their ears that they came
privately to see her, causing themselves to be
presented as vague " noblemen of distinction " ;

but she divined their identity, and they acknow-

ledged it. " The young King," says Mme de
Motteville, " got on very well with the haughty,
learned, and audacious lady and they con-
;

versed with one another freely and with mutual

satisfaction." And so to Compiegne, to meet
Anne of Austria and talk business !

The business, as has already been noted,

181
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
came to no satisfactory conclusion. On the
one hand, it was useless for Christina to
proceed to Sweden to negotiate with Charles
Gustavus, because Charles Gustavus had gone to
the wars on the other hand, Cardinal Mazarin
;

did not see his way to make her a definite pro-

mise of the throne of Naples. He toyed with the
idea,— —
he held out hopes, he threw out hints,
and allowed his meaning to be misunderstood
but he delayed action, intimating that the Pope
would have to be consulted. Nor could he be
induced to hand to Christina the 900,000 crowns
which he owed to Sweden. He would make a
— —
small payment on account, perhaps, presently,
— ^but not immediately. In the meantime she had
better go back to Italy, while plans matured.
Politically, therefore, the journey to France
was a failure but it was a whim rather than
;

an ambition which was thus defeated. Socially

the expedition was a success : the supreme
—
social triumph of Christina's life, not even to be
accounted an anti-climax after the glory of the
reception at Rome. Anne of Austria herself
yielded her precedence at the ceremonial banquet,
though there were those who considered that
concession to audacity improper. The triumph
was the greater because she arrived practically
without a retinue, and had to borrow even a
maid to help her to change her dress, and looked,
according to Mme de Motteville, like " a dissolute
gipsy who did not happen to be quite so dark in
complexion as one would have expected her."
182
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Her manners, must be admitted, were
too, it

not the manners to which the French Court was

accustomed. She manifested her varying
emotions by heaving sighs, lapsing into day-
dreams, and bursting into snatches of song.
Her conversation ranged freely over topics " con-
cerning which reticence is more proper to her
sex " and even that was not the worst
;

" She took the name of God in vain and ;

allowed herself no less licence in her actions than

in her thoughts and speech. She could not sit

still ; and, in the presence of the King, the

Queen, and the entire Court, she threw up her
legs on to chairs as high as the one on which she
was sitting, making them much too conspicuous
to the view."

It was a strain upon French politeness, but

not a stronger strain than French politeness could
stand though Christina added to her other
;

offences an unkind criticism of a dramatic en-

tertainment organised for her diversion by a
troupe of Jesuits, saying that Jesuits were as
unfit to be actors as they were to be confessors.
The Gaul was disposed to make allowances for
the Goth and Christina, on the whole, meant
;

well. She proved it by complimenting Anne of

Austria on the beauty of her hands and she
;

wrote to her friend Azzolino to say that she did

not believe a word of the shocking scandals
whispered concerning the Queen's intimacy with
Cardinal Mazarin.
183
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
She made the mistake, however, of med-
dling with a matter which was no concern of
hers. Those were the days when Louis xiv. was
sighing at the feet of Mazarin's niece, Marie de
Mancini ;and Christina seems to have seen or ,

heard, him sigh. Her letter to Azzolino contains

many comments on the situation. The King,
she thinks, is shy, —^the sort of boy to die of love
without even daring to touch the tip of the lady's
finger ; the lady, on the other hand, is " a past
mistress of all the arts of Roman coquettes."
But Mazarin is too wise a man to let her marry
her sovereign

" He knows very well that marriage is the

sovereign remedy for love, and that the nuptial
bed is generally its tomb. I don't think, there-
fore, that he will put his fortune to so dangerous
a test, for that might suffice to ruin him. . . .

It is only calf-love, —
^there is no genuine passion in
it. Of passion I believe him to be incapable. To
marry him would be to make him hate those who
had taken advantage of his impressionable youth
and you can imagine how such a revulsion in his
feelings might bring about Mazarin's disgrace.
But Mazarin, I fancy, is too clever to take such a
risk."

Itwas a discreet view of the matter but it ;

was an afterthought. Christina's behaviour at

the moment was not so discreet, the whim —
seized her to adopt the role of matchmaker.
184
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" Youshould marry for love," she is said to have
whispered to the King. " Marry, I should en-—
joy being your confidante," she is said to have
whispered to the happy pair when she surprised
them in a flirtation. It was very amiable of her,
even if it was not entirely disinterested. Most
likely the desire to see the course of true love
running smoothly was mingled with the desire
to do Mazarin a good turn, and lay him under
an obligation. But, as Mile de Montpensier
remarks " People who enter into such delicate
:

discussions without being invited to do so are

not popular at Court " and she adds that both
;

the Queen and the Cardinal were displeased, and

that the inconvenance expedited Christina's de-
parture.
In any case her departure was expedited.
The festivities were of unprecedented brilliancy
— the French Court knew how to do things in
style — but they soon came to an end. The
retreat, if we may trust Mile de Montpensier,
was without magnificence

" The Swedish Amazon went off in hired

carriages provided by the King, who also
provided money with which to pay the post-
boys. Only her own miserable retinue followed
her. There was no splendour she had neither
;

a bed, nor silver plate, nor any other indication

of her royal rank."

It certainly does look as if, at the last, there

185
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
had been some little contretemps but Christina
;

was nevertheless fully persuaded in her own

mind that she had a " treaty " with Mazarin,
and that the kingdom of Naples would pres-
ently be hers, if she played her part properly in
certain supplementary negotiations.
And so back, over the Mont Cenis Pass, to
Italy !

186
 CHAPTER XVI
The sojourn in — The return to France — Christina at
Italy
Fontainebleau —The tragic death of Monaldeschi —Was it

a murder or an execution — Was ? a crime passionel

it ?

— Comments on the incident by Gui Patin — By Mme

de Motteville — By Mile de Montpensier— Treason, terror,

and nerves

The sojourn in Italy was to be brief Christina :

crossed the frontier in October 1656 and re-

crossed it in July 1657. Her correspondence
shows her mind divided between the desire to
see Azzolino again and the desire to arrange
for the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples.
She could not go to Rome immediately, how-
ever, because the plague was raging there
an epidemic concerning which Gui Patin irre-

verently remarks that it spared the Pope

and the Cardinals, who could easily have
been replaced, but killed the doctors, who could
not. After a short stay at Turin, therefore,
she settled at Pesaro, where the organisation
of a miniature Court gave her a transitory
illusion of splendour. " Better," said one of
her advisers, " to lack bread than to lack a
retinue " so she engaged, not only gentlemen-
;

in-waiting and ladies-in-waiting, but also Swiss

guards and pages.
187
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Azzolino had news of her, not only from
her own letters, but also from those of the Vice-
Legate Lascaris, whom he had commissioned to
keep a watchful eye on her, and exhort her to
live economically. It is from one of these letters
that we get our most vivid glimpse at her

" Her Majesty " (Lascaris writes) " is more

beautiful and more pious than ever. Yesterday
she wore black velvet trimmed with blue ribbons,
—
with a man's collar, very handsome. It was
a spectacle to turn one's head, especially when,
picking up a French comedy which was lying
on the table, she began to read it to me by
candlelight. The part which she read was
that of Diana in love with Endymion ; and she
read it so well that I was several times on the
"
point of saying

Whatthe Vice-Legate was on the point of

saying a play upon Italian words
involves
which cannot be translated but the gist of
;

the remark was that the pious Queen's passionate

rendering of the love scenes imposed a severe
strain upon a churchman's self-command.
Neither these proofs of piety, however, nor
the laying of the foundation stones of convents,
nor the organisation of balls, picnics, and
amateur theatricals, made up the whole of life
for Christina. She was also anxious to raise
money for the pursuit of her ambitious schemes ;
and she continued to negotiate with Mazarin on
188
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
those allied branches of a single subject. If
the desire for the throne of Naples was a passing
whim, the need of money was a perpetual
preoccupation. She not only wrote to Mazarin
on these matters, but also sent, first Monaldeschi,
and then Santinelli, to Paris to see him about
them ; and she was distressed to find his
responses unsatisfactory and vague.
The kingdom ? Yes, Mazarin had not
—
forgotten about the kingdom, he would see
about the kingdom presently but the time
;

—
was inopportune, Christina must be patient
a little longer. The money ? Yes, Mazarin
could quite understand that Christina wanted
money, —
she should have some. But the
900,000 crowns which she asked for was a great
—
deal of money, far too much to be extracted
from the Treasury on the spur of the moment.
—
Perhaps not all of it was due, in any case, a
payment on account must suffice. Not the
300,000 crowns which Christina pressed for,
not the 100,000 crowns which she was willing
—
to take, but merely the ridiculous sum, as it
seemed to her, of 15,000 crowns. It is not
surprising that Christina, tiring of negotiations
which produced such infinitesimal results, de-
cided to return to Paris and conduct her case
in person.
She made a frivolous excuse, —that she was
curious to see Louis xiv. dance in a ballet, as
it was his pleasant practice to do in those days
of his youth ; and general opinion in France
189
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
attributed the journey to a caprice at least as
idle. She was coming to Paris, Gui Pat in wrote,
because Paris was the " refuge of all wanderers."
" Her pretended conversion," he added,
" serves her as an excuse and a pretext for
playing the pilgrim and careering about all
over the world." He also suspected it might —
—
be hard to say why that the Jesuits were at
the bottom of the business. But what Christina
really wanted was an exciting adventure and
the wherewithal to pay for it.
Mazarin knew that, did not want her, and
dispatched many messengers, armed with
broad hints, to stop her. He looked forward
—
to seeing her later, at a more convenient time,
when he could entertain her more worthily.
Meanwhile, would she mind arresting her
progress at — —
Avignon at Lyon at Nevers ?
In this way he made her journey a kind of
obstacle race but she cleared the obstacles
;

with spirit, bursting through the broad hints

as a circus rider bursts through a tinsel- covered
hoop. It became necessary, if open rudeness
was to be avoided, once more to place the
Palace of Fontainebleau at her disposal until
such time as the French Court should be ready
to receive her.
She settled down at Fontainebleau, and
made herself at home there. Old account
books, preserved in the Azzolino archives, show
that she was principally occupied in attending
to the details of her wardrobe and that of her
190
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
attendants. She bought uniforms for her guards,
liveries for her serving men, new dresses, new
boots, and new gloves for her ladies and herself,
— all this apparently
preparation for the
in
triumphant march to Naples. But it is not
for these purchases that the second sojourn
at Fontainebleau is famous. The event which
made it memorable for ever was the tragic
death of Monaldeschi, which horrified, first
Paris, then France, and then all Christendom

" Just as the King was about to start for

Fontainebleau to see the Queen of Sweden, he
received news which prevented him from doing
so ; news to the effect that she had caused her
first equerry, who was an Italian, to be put to

death by another Italian, on account of certain

rascalities and deceptions practised on her,
and on account of certain forged letters which
the equerry had shown her, and which caused
her the greater offence because even her honour
was compromised in them. Such are the diver-
sions of The name of the assassin
princes.
and the name of the man assassin-
is Santinelli,

ated is Monaldeschi. As soon as he was dead,

she had the wretched man's body conveyed to
the Mathurin convent, where it was buried.
They say that she was herself in the gallery,
close to the apartment in which the assassina-
tion took place. It is a very tragic affair
it also gives one the impression of being a very

black and scoundrelly affair. The poor fellow

191
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
evidently had some suspicion of what was about
to happen, for he was wearing a coat of mail,
which made it very difficult to dispatch him.
The Queen of Sweden, told of this, replied that
they had better cut his throat, which they
duly did. I hear that she has written to the
King, saying that this is the proper way to
treat officers who betray their sovereigns, or
are lacking in respect and loyalty towards
them. Nevertheless, every one whom I meet
puts an unfavourable construction on the pro-
ceeding, and considers it an act of evil omen."

That was the first version of the story, given

forth in one of Gui Pat in' s letters.
It is not
quite whether, in what he says about
clear
Christina's " honour," he means to hint at a
crime passionel ; but public opinion instinc-
tively took that view of the matter. Monal-
deschi was untrue, and Christina was jealous :

that was the doctrine promptly expounded,

after the custom of the time, in a Latin epigram

"Dum regina ferox insanum csedit amantem,

Et cadit ante suos victima maesta pedes,
Amborum miseram flebit gens postera sortem
Perdidit hie vitam, perdidit ilia decus."

Which is to say that, when the lover fell at the

feet of the ferocious Queen, she forfeited her fair
fame as surely as he lost his life.
—
A natural supposition which furnished the
elder Dumas with the motive of a famous tragedy
— ^but not, it would seem, a well-founded one.
192
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Whether murder or execution be the proper
word for the putting to death of Monaldeschi,
love had nothing to do with either his favour
or his fate. The letters which Lascaris wrote
to Azzolino from Pesaro make that as certain
as anything can be. The Vice-Legate dealt
freely in scandal when he could but he had
;

nothing scandalous to report about Christina's

affection for her equerries. On the contrary

" The Queen " (he wrote) " loves no one in

this world. She only loves her whims and
caprices, and she lacks the power to execute
them."

Meaning, merely, it would appear, that she was

anxious to go to Rome, but could not.
Nor can the crime passionel theory be sup-
ported from the comments of either Mme de
Motteville or Mile de Montpensier. For Mme
de Motteville, Christina's victim was merely
" a man who had offended her " and she was
;

chiefly moved by the cruelty, the scandal, and,

above all, the bad taste of the proceeding

" After her abominably cruel action " (she

writes indignantly) " she sat chatting quietly
in her room, as if nothing in particular had
happened. The Very Christian Queen-Mother,^
who had had so many enemies, and had over-
whelmed them with marks of kindness instead
1 Anne of Austria.

N 193
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of the punishment which they deserved, was
inexpressibly shocked. The King and his
brother blamed the proceeding and the
;

Minister/ who had no cruelty in his composition,

was amazed at it. In fact, the entire Court
was horrified by the ugly act of vengeance
and those who had praised the Queen were
ashamed of their eulogies, though they did not
failto ridicule her unhappy victim for neglecting
to defend himself. At least he should have
carried a dagger and should have used it."

While Mile de Montpensier, who presently

had a second interview with Christina at
Fontainebleau, and concluded that she did
not like her, comments as follows

" The Queen had Monaldeschi her

told
grounds of complaint against him, and given
him to understand that it was all one to her
whether she had him beheaded in Sw^eden or
executed in the Fontainebleau gallery. San-
tinelli had some difficulty in killing him, as he
was wearing a coat of mail. He had to strike
several times, with the result that the gallery
ran with blood, and the stains can still be
seen in spite of frequent attempts to wash
them out. The general view taken of the
proceeding was very unfavourable, and strong
remarks were passed on her audacity in com-
mitting it in the King's Palace. Her claim
^ Mazarin.
194
'////r. r/e . / (<Mi/jtte^^i^r:
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
was that she was doing justice, and that a
sovereign's power of life and death over his
subjects remained with the sovereign wherever
he might be. This kind of death, however, is
—
very cruel for any one and especially for a
woman —to inflict."

That was how contemporaries talked over

their nine days' wonder. Their knowledge of
the details was derived from rumour ;and
they had no knowledge of the motives, but
could only guess at them. The modern
historian has better clues than they had. He
has the account of an eye-witness, and Chris-
tina's ownvindication of her act. In the light
of these documents, he can reduce the mystery
to a minimum and determine, in general though
not in particular, the " why " as wxll as the
" how."
Monaldeschi's crime was treason, and the
motive of Christina's cruelty was fear. She
was not naturally cruel but her nerves
;

those nerves on which we have had to remark

—
so often got the better of her, and scared her
into brutal violence. That is the m.atter in a
nutshell the details shall be given in the next
:

chapter.

195
 CHAPTER XVII
Monaldeschi's alleged treason — Impossibility of discovering the
particulars — Details of the execution — Done death
to in
the Galerie des Cerfs — Attitude of the French Court
Christina's refusal to leave France in disgrace

The details of old treasons are generally un-

convincing the details of Monaldeschi's treason
;

are tangled and obscure. One knows that he

confessed but one does not know what he
;

confessed. One knows that he forged letters ;

but one does not know what was in the letters.

One knows that he tried to throw the blame for
his own misconduct on Francesco Santinelli
but the precise nature of that misconduct is
wrapped in mystery, as are also the precise
grounds of Santinelli's quarrel with him. All that
is clear is that neither of the two men merits

much sympathy, and that the proceedings of

both of them were tortuous.
If Monaldeschi was a traitor, Santinelli was
unquestionably a thief. Christina had sent him
to Rome, to take her jewels out of pawn, and
make arrangements for her next stay there.
After redeeming the jewels, he had re-engaged
them, and pocketed the proceeds and he had ;

also made an illegitimate profit by charging for

196
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
expenses which he had not incurred. Perhaps
—
but this is not quite certain he had also com-
mented offensively on Christina's relations with
Cardinal Azzolino. Monaldesclii, at any rate,
had heard enough to be able to make out a good
case against him. He tried to make out too
good a case by forging Santinelli's handwriting,
and offering the letters as proofs that Santinelli
was a " traitor."
There certainly was nothing to betray which
is of the least importance to the modern student

of history but it does not follow that there

;

was nothing to betray which was of importance to

Christina at the time. To us her designs on the
Kingdom of Naples seem merely fantastic. They
could come to nothing without the co-operation
of Mazarin, who evidently did not mean to
co-operate; but that, naturally, w^as not Chris-
tina's view of tlie matter. She believed that
Spain was afraid of her and she knew that she
;

was afraid of Spain. She may even have had

reason to be afraid of Spain in the days of the
dagger and the poisoned cup and her whole
;

behaviour, both before the tragic incident and

afterwards, is that of a woman spurred to cruelty
by panic.
What first led her to suspect Monaldeschi
is uncertain. In any case, " information re-
ceived " induced her to intercept and open his
letters ; and their contents seemed to her to
furnish full proofs of his perfidy. The nature of
that perfidy is not disclosed in her own account
197
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of the incidentand no one outside her im-
;

—
mediate circle perhaps no one but herself and
—
her victim ever knew what it was. She spoke
to Monaldeschi on the subject, however, telling
him that she had discovered treachery, but allow-
ing himto suppose that she believed Santinelli
to be the traitor. The following dialogue is
reported, in Christina's version of the story, to
have passed between them :

" It
is quite clear, madam, that Your Majesty

has been betrayed and the traitor must be

;

either the absentee known to Your Majesty and

me, or else it must be myself. The treachery
can emanate from no third quarter. Your
Majesty will soon know which of us is guilty ;

and I trust that Your Majesty will not pardon

the offender."
" What punishment do you consider to be
due to a man who betrays me in that style ? "
" Your Majesty should show him no mercy,
but should instantly put him to death. I am
quite prepared to be either executioner or victim ;

it is an act of justice."
" Very well ! Remember what you have said.
Ipromise you, for my part, that I will not forgive
him."

Which may or may

not be true for the dra- ;

matic propriety of the dialogue provokes sus-

picion. But Christina, at any rate, laid her plans
as secretly as Monaldeschi had laid his. If he
feared that evil would befall him, the appre-
198
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
hension was due to the qualms of conscience, and
not to any threat or warning. His fate took him
none the less by surprise because it found him
in a coat of mail. He feared, presumably, that
he might be struck down by the stealthy dagger
of a hired assassin —hired,
might be, by his
it

enemy Santinelli assuredly he did not expect

;

that he would be done to death by open violence.

That, nevertheless, was to be his fate and ;

it was imminent. An eye-witness one Father —

le Bel —has pictured the scene for us. He
spares us no barbarous detail and there is no;

reason to doubt the essential truth of his

narrative.
Father Bel begins by telling us how he,
le

the Prior of the Community of the Maturins at

Fontainebleau, was fetched by a Groom of the
Chambers to a private interview with Christina
in the Galerie des Cerfs. She asked whether she
could depend upon him to respect her confidence,
and he promised to do so, saying that, in all
confidential matters, he was as one blind and
dumb. Then she gave him a paper packet
sealed in three places, but bearing no address,
saying that, when she asked for it again, he was
to give it her, in the presence of such witnesses
as she chose to summon. The parcel contained,
of course, the incriminating letters, —
the pieces de
conviction : the stage was being set for the great
scene of confrontation. The curtain was rung
up on that scene at one o'clock on the following
Saturday afternoon.
199
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
At that hour, the Prior received the summons
which he was awaiting, and once more attended
Christina in the Galerie des Cerfs. He entered ;

and the Groom of the Chambers slammed the

door behind him with an alarming violence. He
advanced nervously towards Christina, whom he
perceived, at the further end of the apartment,
conversing with Monaldeschi, while other mem-
—
bers of her Court stood by, one of them close to
her, and the others a few paces behind. She
called in a loud voice :
" Give me the packet,
father. I want to read it." He gave it to her,
and remained, with no inkling of what was about
—
to happen, ^the reluctant witness of a disturbance
which was no concern of his. And then came the
confrontation which had been arranged, and the
tragedy in which the Prior, hoAvever reluctantly,
had to play a part.
The seals were broken ;the package was
opened. Monaldeschi was shown the letters con-
tained in it, and was asked for explanations. He
stammered unconvincing and confused excuses
but he had to admit that the handwriting was his.
" Oh, the traitor " cried the Queen
! and he
;

threw himself at her feet, imploring her forgive-

ness, while the other members of the suite drew
their swords. But the climax was not quite yet.
Christina, to all appearance, was playing with
her victim like a cat with a mouse. The prob-
ability is that she was as much afraid of him as he
—and also afraid
of her, of herself, and afraid of
her own —and that
fears, it was her fears which
200
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
gradually screwed her courage to the sticking-
point. At all events, she did not refuse to listen
to Monaldeschi's entreaties, but conversed with
him, according to the Prior, " with great patience
and moderation, without giving any sign that
she was displeased by his importunity.'* The
conversation lasted for more than an hour and ;

the Prior doubtless expected it to end with a

reprimand and a pardon.
But not so. Two speeches which Christina
addressed to the Prior showed how, after
fluctuating, she had come to her determination

" Observe, father ! You are my witness

that I am making no undue haste, but am
giving this traitor more time than he has the
right to ask for from a person whom he has
wronged, to justify himself, if he can do so."

And then, after a further interval, gravely,

and in measured tones

" Father, I now leave this man

your in
hands. Comfort his soul, and make him ready
for death."

Not until then did the Prior realise the

drama, and the part in it which had been
assigned to him. So far, the matter had been
no business of his but now the claims of
;

humanity made it so. Startled at last into

action, he threw himself at Christina's feet,
and implored her to be merciful. She refused,
201
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
giving her reasons, — at great length, but
vaguely. The traitor was " a worse criminal
than those who are condemned to be broken
—
on the wheel " she had trusted him, and he
—
had betrayed her trust, his own conscience
should be his executioner, etc. and when she
;

had finished, she swept out of the room.

The three executioners stood with drawn
swords, ready, and yet a little reluctant, to begin
their work. Monaldeschi, quite unmanned, now"
knelt to them, as he had before knelt to
Christina. One of them was moved to the point
of following Christina and interceding for him ;

but the message which he brought back was :

" No, Marquis, you are to die. Think of God

and of your soul " Then Father le Bel, in his
!

turn, was besought to go on the same errand

"
He did so, and found the Queen in her
apartment, with a serene and unmoved counten-
ance. He threw himself at her feet, and with
tears streaming from his eyes and a voice
shaken with sobs, and implored her, by the
wounds and passion of the Saviour, to have
pity on the Marquis. She assured him that
she was very sorry she could not grant his
request, and spoke to him of the blackness of
the miserable wretch's perfidy, and of the
cruelty of his intentions towards herself, adding
that he must not look for pity or pardon, and
that many who had been broken on the wheel
deserved their fate less than he did."
202
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Supplication having failed, the Prior fell back
upon argument, appealing first to expediency,
and then to magnanimity. The Queen was not
in her own Palace, —
the King whose hospitality
she enjoyed might not approve. Though she
was doing an act of justice, yet surely she should
do it in accordance with the forms of law. Let
—
her lodge a complaint, her host would not
grudge her satisfaction, and her reputation
would not be sullied ]:>y the strictures of the
ill-informed. So he reasoned but Christina had
;

an answer ready for every argument. She was

not a prisoner or an exile in France, she said,
she was a sovereign ruler, supreme over her
own subjects, and had no need to ask any man's
leave to do justice, — least of all when she held
the proofs of a traitor's guilt in her hand. So
her last words were

"No, no, my father. I shall tell the King

all about it. Go back to the man, and see to
his soul. I\Iy conscience will not let me do what
you ask."

She was thoroughly frightened ; convinced

that, if she did not kill Monaldeschi, Monaldeschi
would kill her. That was how the Prior judged
her and there can be little doubt that he judged
;

her rightly, though it was impossible for him,

and is equally impossible for us, to say whether
her fear was well-founded. The Prior, at any
rate, felt that he could do no more beyond
203
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
discharging the duties which his cloth imposed.
He was, as it were, the prison chaplain, com-
missioned against his will, ad hoc, for the shriv-
ing of this particular prisoner. He returned,
therefore,with the report that there was no
hope, and bade Monaldeschi confess his sins.
The confession was made, punctuated with—
agonising shrieks of terror.
The Queen's Almoner entered the Gallery ;

and to him also Monaldeschi addressed his

piteous appeal. There was a conference between
them but the chief executioner cut it short,
;

saying " Marquis, ask God's forgiveness. Your

:

death cannot be delayed any longer. Have you

finished your confession ? " And he pushed
him, without waiting for an answer, against
the Gallery wall, and stabbed at his stomach.
Monaldeschi caught at the sword with his hand,
and cut his fingers. Then he was slashed in the
face and then he called to the Prior, and was
;

accorded a few moments' respite, during which he

professed penitence, and received absolution,
the Confessor exhorting him to remember God,
and resign himself to bear the punishment for
his sins. And then the executioners went in
and finished their work, which was a slow
business, because of the coat of mail ; and
then

" The Queen, having been assured that the

Marquis was really dead, expressed her regret
at having been obliged to execute him, but
204
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
said that justice required her to punish him for
his crime and his treason, and that she prayed
God She told the Confessor to
to forgive him.
take him away carefully and bury him, and
added that she wished several masses said for
his soul. She sent one hundred livres
. . .

by two of her men to the Convent to arrange

for prayers for the repose of the said Marquis's
soul."

Those are all the details which can be got :

they are precise enough in one sense, but very

vague in another. The Prior's story and the
official story have this in common : that they
draw a graphic picture of the punishment while
leaving the crime nebulous. It is difficult to
doubt that the significance of the treason, albeit
a real offence, was magnified in Christina's
scared imagination. That view of the matter
is suggested alike by the comments of con-
temporaries and by her own letters of justifica-
tion. Longland's letter on the subject to
Thurloe may be supposed to give a dispassionate
estimate

" The Queen of Sweden murdering her Roman

marquis has much displeased the Pope and all
the Coiu't of Rome, whither, if she should again
repair, I suppose she would find but cold
welcome."

Gui Patin, at about the same date, writes of

205
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
her as being " despised and detested " on account
of the assassination and it is a question, of
;

course, whether, even on the assumption that

the punishment did fit the crime, a Queen of
Sweden had any right to the punishment in
inflict
a French Palace. If we could imagine Napoleon
III. detecting one his suite in treasonable
of
correspondence with the Comte de Chambord,
and causing him to be hacked to pieces in the
garden at Chislehurst, we should have a fairly-
close modern parallel and one knows pretty
;

well how such a proceeding would have been

regarded by the British Government. On the
other hand, royalty, though in partibus, enjoyed
privileges in the seventeenth century which are
now denied to it. Charles ii., when in exile,
caught one of his suite in treasonable corre-
spondence with Cromwell's Secretary of State,
and had him shot in the Palace of the Duke of
Neuburg and the act is seldom even thought
;

worth mentioning by historians. So that several

international jurists —Leibnitz among them
have made out a case for Christina and the ;

French Court and Ministers did not know what

line to take or how far it was proper for them to
be censorious.
On the whole, they judged it better to hush
the matter up. Louis xiv. declined to fulfil his
promise to visit Christina at Fontainebleau but ;

Mazarin sent her old friend Chanut, and Abbe

Ondelei, to see her there, and beg that she would
represent Monaldeschi's death as due to a brawl
206
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
among which swords were drawn.
courtiers, in
—
But Christina would not, those who asked her
to do so did not know her. She had a kind of
courage, though not the best kind, and cannot
be classed with the wicked who flee when no man
pursueth. Not pursuit, but only remonstrance,
had to be faced now. She could not bear to
think that she had been frightened into an action
of which she ought to be ashamed ; and the
choice lay for her between appearing to be
ashamed, and appearing to be as bold as brass.
And brass, assuredly, could not have been
more bold than she now showed herself. Her
conscience was covered with a coat of brass far
thicker than that which had failed to protect
her victim from the assassins. Hints that she
would do well to slink away out of France were
—
wasted on her, she, too, knew how to drop hints.
—
She meant to staj^ and not only to stay, but to
be entertained in style. Thrown on her defence,
she defended herself with the fury of a wild cat
at bay. ^We must have her justification before
us at full length.

207
 CHAPTER XVIII
Christina's letters in justification of the putting to death of
Monaldeschi — Letter to Santinelli —
To Mazarin — To
Chanut — Her proposal to visit —
Cromwell Reasons why
the proposal was declined — Her second visit to Paris
Her return to Rome — Her financial difficulties

The first person to whom Christina justified her-

self was the rascal who had robbed
Santinelli :

her, still robbing her, and had no intention

was
of ceasing to rob her. Never for one moment,
she wrote, had she believed Monaldeschi's asper-
sions on Santinelli's character but she had ;

pretended to believe them, in order to bring the

criminal's guilt home to him

" In the end, he died, confessing his infamy

and admitting your innocence, protesting that
he had invented the whole fantastic story in
order to ruin you.
" Take note of his example, and pray God
that he may
never let you lose either your in-
your honour. Always behave like
telligence or
a gentleman, and never do anything unworthy
of that character.
" You need not trouble to justify my action
to any one. I do not propose to render an
account of it to any one but God, who would have
208
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
punished me if I had pardoned the traitor his
abominable dehnquency. Let that suffice for
you.
" My conscience assures me that I acted in
accordance with the precepts of divine justice,
and that I could not act, and ought not to have
acted, otherwise.
" Keep yourself in a good temper, and I will
do my best to procure you the consolation on
which your heart is set."

That consolation being a dukedom, which Chris-

tina solicited for Santinelli, though without
success.
The second justification was addressed to
Mazarin, and ran thus

" —
My Cousin, M. Chanut, who is, I believe,
one of the best friends I have, will assure you that
I receive all your communications with respect,
and, if he has not frightened me, as he expected to
do, that was not for lack of terrifying eloquence.
To tell you the truth, we Northerners are some-
what ferocious, and not easily alarmed. You will
excuse me, therefore, if his errand to me has not
had all the success that you could have wished,
and I beg you to believe that I will willingly do
anything to please you except showing myself
afraid of you. You are aware that any man who
has passed the age of thirty has ceased to be
afraid of bogeys ; and I, for my part, find it
much easier to cut people's throats than to be
O 209
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
frightened by them. As for what I did to Monal-
deschi, I assure you that, if I had not akeady
done it, I would do it to-night, before going to
bed. I have no reason to regret my action, but
every reason to be delighted with it. Those are
my sentiments. I hope they meet with your
approval ; but, if they do not, I shall never-
theless entertain them, always remaining, your
very affectionate friend, Christina."

Finally, Christina justified herself to Chanut,

sending him a copy of her letter to Mazarin,
with the following covering communication :

" I send you the letter which I have written

to the Cardinal. I have nothing to add to it
beyond begging you to assure him, as a message
from me, that I will gladly do anything in my
power for him and the King except showing fear
and repenting, or disavowing any of my actions.
I know of no one who is great enough, or powerful
enough, to compel me to conceal my sentiments
or disown my actions. I am not telling you
this as a secret confided to a friend, but as a
sentiment which all the world is welcome to
know, and which I have no intention of dis-
guising as long as I live."

That isthe defence : characteristically

—
feminine in tw o particulars, its extreme violence
and its singular lack of precision. An attempt
to analyse it gets no more out of it than this :

210
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
that Christina has killed Monaldeschi because
she considered that he ought to be killed that ;

the nature of his offence is nobody's business

but hers that those who ask no questions will
;

be told no lies. It was a case of weakness

affecting strength under the influence of hysteria ;

and of course the obstinate withholding of in-

formation was a direct inducement to gossip to
invent it. Christina sowed mysterious hints,
and the inevitable crop was the legend of the
crime passionel. " Not proven " rather than
" disproved " is the verdict of some historians on
that legend even now; though all the probability
is in favour of a political plot, the discovery of
which startled Christina into a nervous crisis.
Mazarin, as we have seen, did not want to
sift the scandal, but to hush it up. That fact
might seem to favour the inference drawn by
Gui Patin that Monaldeschi was a spy in his
employ, and that it was to him that Christina's
designs were being betrayed but one finds no
;

other indication to support the theory. The

probability is that Mazarin did not care a snap
of thefingers whether Monaldeschi lived or
died, but was divided between his desire to use
Christina as an instrument in his policy, and
his indignation at her effrontery in exercising
criminal jurisdiction in one of the royal palaces
of France. The line ultimately taken, at any
rate, was that Christina had been guilty of
" bad taste " an offence which must be
:

punished, but might be purged.

211
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
The punishment took the form of a social
boycott. Christina was not invited to leave
Fontainebleau, but she was left to her own
devices there, all through the late autumn and
—
the early winter, seasons when Fontainebleau
is a most undesirable place of residence and
;

Society gave her the cold shoulder. It was a

very different experience from that of the first
visit, when Mile de Montpensier had flattered
her, and Menage had presented his host of
" gentlemen of distinction." She was bored to
death, and yet did not like to depart under a
cloud, — or without a further instalment of that
money which she expected Mazarin to give her.
Consequently, as offers of hospitality were not
volunteered, there was nothing for it but to
fish for them.
She began by fishing for an invitation to
England and an emissary was dispatched to
;

sound Cromwell on the subject. It may or

may not be true, as was alleged, that Christina
hoped to persuade the Lord Protector, in
whose family the Lord Protectorate had just
been declared hereditary, to divorce his wife,
and marry one of Mazai-in's nieces. It might
certainly have been a way of currying favour
with Mazarin, and an illustration of the current
saying that Christina only relieved herself of
the cares of the Kingdom of Sweden in order
to charge herself with the conduct of the affairs
of Europe. It would also have been an
opportunity of doing something for the greater
212
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
glory of the Church and one can readily believe
;

that Christina's active mind desired both

religious and political activity as a relief from
the tedium of the social boycott.
But Cromwell was a difficult fish to angle
for. He
expressed his gratification at Christina's
compliments he paid her for them in the same
;

coin but he did not encourage her to cross

;

the channel. He did not like meddlesome

women he did not want expensive visitors
; ;

and he had to consider Mrs. Cromwell. If

Mrs. Cromwell had heard any whisper of the

proposal for her repudiation, she would naturally
have given expression to the opinions which
she would inevitably have held. So that
Christina abandoned her designs upon England,
and fished for an invitation to Paris instead.
She did really want, she said, to see the King
dance in that ballet and she also wanted to
;

hear the Lenten sermons of that popular preacher,

Pere le Bouts.
was an excuse, of course,
It —
and as tran-
sparent as an excuse could be. We have already
seen enough of Christina's behaviour in church
to measure the sincerity of any interest which
she professed to take in sermons. What she
really wanted was to depart from France in a
blaze of glory, with plenty of money in her pocket,
instead of slinking away as one on whom Court
and Society had turned their backs. To that
end an invitation to Paris was a sine qua non;
and Mazarin finally yielded to her solicitations.
213
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
He did not want Christina in Paris, —and
Anne of Austria wanted her there still less
but he could not afford to quarrel with her.
He had no real intention of invading Naples
on her behalf; but the fear of the Spaniards
that he might do so was a convenient diplomatic
asset with which he did not wish to part. To
that end, it was worth his while to keep up
appearances, and even to spend a little money.
So lie sent the invitation, and Christina accepted
it, —only to find that she was in Paris on
sufferance, and that every one was anxious to
see her go.
She saw the King dance
in a ballet she heard
;

the popular preacher deliver some of his sermons,

— ^though whether she listened or not one does
not know. She also went to masked balls, and
to the theatre, —driving there
in a coach which
she hailed in the street and she attended one
;

of the ordinary sessions of the French Academy,

where the Academicians not only read her
some of their unpublished compositions, but
showed her how they worked at the compilation
of their Dictionary. The word which she was
invited to study was Jeu, and one of the
definitions ran Jeux de Prince, qui ne plaisent
:

qu'd ceux qui les /onf,— practical jokes, that is

to say, which divert the perpetrator at the ex-
pense of his victim. According to some accounts,
Christina flushed scarlet according to others,
;

she laughed. It may well be that she blushed

first, and then laughed to cover the blushes,
214
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
not knowing whether the strangely apposite
example had or had not been chosen to em-
barrass her.
In any case, however, she was an unwelcome
guest, permitted to make her demonstration,
entertained because, if she were not entertained,
she would seem to have been snubbed and
disgraced, but overwhelmed with hints that
the Court would feel obliged if she would cut
her visit as short as possible. It reached her
ears that Anne of Austria had said that she
should herself leave Paris if her guest outstayed
her welcome any longer ; and it is said that
Mazarin offered her money on condition that she
would not stand upon the order of her going, but
would go at once.
—
So she went not even waiting to hear the
—
last of the popular preacher's sermons embarking
at Toulon for Leghorn, feeling dissatisfied and
snubbed, but leaving a diplomatic representative
to cover her retreat. Her ambitious schemes of
conquest were not formally abandoned, either
by her or by Mazarin. She even, on her way to
Rome, concluded a kind of a treaty of alliance
with the Duke of Modena, who undertook to help
her, —albeit on conditions which he must have
known it to be impossible for her to fulfil. But
the scheme remained in tlie air ; and it became
more and more evident that it was never to
materialise. It died, as it were, a natural death
;

and Christina found other and more urgent

preoccupations.
215
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Then, as so often during her life, she was
vexed with the lack of pence for though she
;

was never avaricious, she was always extravagant,

never troubling to ask the cost of anything that
she wanted, and keeping no account of her ex-
penditure. And of course there were those who
took advantage of her carelessness. Notably
Francesco Santinelli took advantage of it. He in-
duced her to sign receipts which she had not read ;

he induced her to dismiss her Swiss Guard, and

pawned the uniforms of the guardsmen he ;

pawned plate and jewellery, and lied as to the

disposition of the proceeds he borrowed articles
;

from Christina's wardrobe, on the pretence that

they were wanted for a theatrical entertainment,
and pawned them instead of restoring them ;

even Christina's ermine cloak, a garment of—

State, embroidered with gold crowns, was —
pawned.
It might not have mattered —
her finances
might have stood the strain— if the expected
subsidies had arrived from Sweden. But they
did not arrive — or, at all events, only a fraction
of them came to hand ; was a
so that there
double strain on Christina's resources. She
—
wanted to live her own life, which meant that
she wanted to live in grand style as a munificent
patron of the arts but the wherewithal was
;

lacking. Something, it was quite clear, would

have to be done,— a good deal, in fact, would have
to be done. Not only must the financial situation
be cleared up at Rome but Christina must also
;

216
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
once again scour Europe a la recherche de la
piece de cent sous.
Her position Rome, in
at fact, was un-
comfortable in more ways than
one. Santinelli
was not only robbing her, but was also com-
promising her by making love to the Pope's great-
niece, for whom the Pope did not consider him
an eligible suitor and the Pope was, further, by
;

no means satisfied with Christina's explanation of

Monaldeschi's violent death. He accorded her
that " cold welcome " which Longland had
predicted to Thurloe he complained that she
;

made jests which were in bad taste and he ;

spoke of her as " barbarian, by birth and edu-

cation, with barbarous ideas about everything,"
and commented adversely on her " savage and
almost intolerable pride."
That of the pet convert, whom he had feasted,
and expected to prove a shining example to
Christendom !It is always disconcerting to see a
religious leader commit a crime and Alexander
;

VII. may well have felt as embarrassed as did

Joanna Southcott when Mary Bateman, whom
she had " sealed " as one of the " faithful," was
hanged for murder at York. In view of his
attitude, as well as of her other troubles, Chris-
tina needed all the help that she could get
from her own energy and the discretion of her
friends.
Happily she had a friend, as discreet as he
was agreeable, in Cardinal Azzolino. We have
already seen her gazing at his portrait wlien she
217
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Rome, for the
left first time, in quest of adventure.
Now, at the hour of her need, he came back into
her hfe, entered it as a dominating force, and
acquired an influence over her waywardness
which he was never quite to lose.

218
 CHAPTER XIX
Cardinal Azzolino — His character and his relations with
Christina — Christina'sfinancial —
embarrassments A la
recherche de la piece de cent sous — Her return to Sweden
— Her unpleasant reception there — Her quarrel with the
Bishop of Abo—The threats which she addressed to him
— She shakes the dust of Sweden off her feet and repairs
to Hamburg

Whether Cardinal Azzolino was everything that

a Cardinal ought to be or not, at least he conforms
agreeably to certain popular conceptions of
Cardinals. He was only moderately pious, and
only moderately clever but he was young and
;

—
handsome, a gentleman of distinguished man-
ners, and a cultivated amateur of the arts.
Perhaps the best way of putting it will be to say
that, like many other prelates, but more success-
fully than most of them, he prolonged the
traditions of the Renaissance into the seven-
teenth century.
He made no such noise in the world as
Cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, de Retz, and
Alberoni not only because he was less able than
;

they were, but also because he was less ambitious

and more indolent, liking neither risks nor
responsibilities. He was supple, indeed, —owing
his red hat to services supply rendered in some
219
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
backstairs Vatican business, he enjoyed—and
figuring as a Tadpole or Taper in a Vatican
intrigue but he was, before everything else, a
;

scholar, a connoisseur, and an accomplished man

of the world, —
reported to be very successful
with ladies such a man as Talleyrand was before
:

opportunity pricked his ambition.

How far he was successful with Christina is,
to this hour, a matter of conjecture. " Peu
importe, a mon avis,'''' writes Baron de Bildt, who
has pushed his inquiries further than any one else,
" si Azzolino a partage ou non la couche de la
reine " and no doubt, if the secret had really
;

mattered, it would not have been kept. All

that one can justly say is that very close intimacy
is implied in some of the Cardinal's communi-
cations to third parties, —
to the Papal Nuncio, at
Warsaw, for instance, who wanted to know, in
circumstances which we shall come to, whether,
if Christina married, she would be likely to have

an heir

" Her Majesty's temperament " (Azzolino

then wrote) " is still so vigorous that one might
reasonably expect her to be capable of bearing
children for another ten years to come. At any
ardour would perhaps
earlier period, her excessive
have prevented her from doing so."

He gave no reasons for the opinion, he may —

only have said what Christina herself told him
to say but one is nevertheless reminded of the
;

220
iytni/uia I . f>r<>/iiu
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
French lady's famous question to a gentleman
who vouched too emphatically for another lady's
virtue :
" Comment faites-vous, monsieur, jpour
etre si sur de ces chose-ld ? "
the Perhaps
Cardinal's ready wit would have prompted a
suitable reply to the inquiry but we need not
;

try to frame one for him. The importance of

his friendship for Christina does not depend upon
that detail. Azzolino may or may not have
entered Christina's life as a lover he certainly
:

entered it as a steadying influence, a peacemaker,

and a level-headed financial counsellor.
all, he helped her to make her peace
First of
with the Pope, whose indignation at the doing to
death of Monaldeschi was as nothing compared
with his wrath at the presumption of her young
friend Santinelli in proposing marriage to his own
grandniece. Christina was persuaded to get the
suitor out of the way by sending him on a mission
to Vienna and she received the papal benediction
;

as her reward. Then Azzolino sent for Santin-

elli's accounts, and went through them, and

showed Christina how she had been deceived by

the man whom she had trusted. Among his
other rascalities, it appeared, Santinelli had ac-
counted for some of the money which he had
stolen by saying that he had lent it to Azzolino,
whose he represented, would be hurt,
feelings, if

Christina reminded him of the loan.

All that, and muchcame out during
else,

Santinelli's absence, much as a fraudulent bank

clerk's embezzlements are discovered when he
221
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
takes a holiday. was furious and
Christina
threatened prosecution but Santinelli was care-
;

ful not to venture within the jurisdiction of any

Court before which she could cite him. She
recovered hardly anything, and had to pawn her
diamonds to procure ready money. Meanwhile,
Azzolino reconstituted her household for her ;

and he would seem to have been a good judge of

servants, for the new men whom he introduced
remained in her service until either their death
or hers. So that she now had a strong man, who
—
was also a charming man, to lean upon, a very
necessary support to her, in spite of her passion-
ate desire for freedom, if her life was to present
any appearance of stability.
She was toying, at the time, with a fresh
scheme of high politics nothing less than a Last
:

Crusade of all the Powers of Christendom against

the Heathen Turk. It was an anticipation of our
modern Concert of Europe for which there was
something to be said for the Heathen Turk of
;

those days was no Sick Man, but a healthy and

full-blooded raider and marauder, threatening to
overrun Europe in the name of the Prophet, and
destined only to be prevented from sacking
Vienna by the timely arrival of John Sobieski.
Christina not only discussed her elaborate plan
for his discomfiture with the Venetian Ambas-
sador, but also spent 3100 crowns on preliminary
expenses towards the raising of a regiment of
Crusaders, which was never, in fact, raised.
At the same time, she was embellishing her Roman
222

I
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
palace like a museum with the
art treasures which
she had removed from Stockholm and ware-
housed for a time at Antwerp.
Hence the pressing need for substantial and
regular remittances ; for Azzolino, adroit finan-
cier though he was, needed assets as well as
liabilities in order to make the budget balance.
And Christina's remittances were neither regular
nor substantia,l for Charles Gustavus, though
;

honest, was hard pressed. He was a pious and

plucky little man who shouted his prayers at the
top of his voice and maintained that a great
Prince should always be at war, in order to put
the fear of God into his neighbours. Sometimes
Denmark, sometimes Poland, and sometimes
Holland was the enemy and, whoever was the
;

enemy, the war always cost Charles Gustavus

more than he could afford. The territories on
which Christina's revenues were secured were
overrun, and yielded no profit ; and there was
no other source from which the deficit could be
made good. And so once more : A la recherche
de la piece de cent sous !

It was not the most creditable of quests. At

a time when Sweden was at war with half
Europe, and was hard driven, we find Christina
entering into negotiations with her country's
enemies ;
proposing that, if the Emperor would
come to terms with her, she would give him
Pomerania, and " do something " one fails to —
—
understand exactly wliat for the advantage of
the Catholic religion. It is an example, no doubt,
223
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of unreflecting egoism ; but, as nothing came of
it, we need not
insist. It was the general doctrine
of the —
time not the individual opinion of
—
Christina that countries were made for Kings,
rather than Kings for countries. Moreover, her
lack of means was awkward, even to the point
of imperilling her social position. The Italians,
reported Lon gland to Thurloe, " love not such
converts as lack money." And then came the
news that Gustavus Charles had died, leaving a
boy of four as his heir and there was some doubt
;

whether the Regents would fulfil his promise to

pay Christina's allowance. She concluded that
she had better go to Sweden to look after her
interests and the Pope was once more suffi-
;

ciently anxious to see her go, to help her with

the travelling expenses. He exerted his influence
at the pawnshop, to secure her an advance of
20,000 crowns at four per cent.
At last, on July 20, 1660, she set out, with a
small suite, and, travelling by way of Rimini,
Verona, Trieste, Augsburg, and Nuremberg,
arrived at Hamburg on August 18. The Em-
peror had already signed terms of peace with
Sweden, without taking any notice of her over-
tures most wisely, for she obviously was not in
;

a position to carry out her undertakings. She

had other schemes, however, at the back of her
brain, in addition to those which she avowed.
Just as she, years before, had named Charles
Gustavus her heir, why should not the Regents
now return the compliment and make her
224
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the heir of Charles Gustavus' delicate little

boy?
There were several reasons why they should
not; and, in any case, they did not want to.
Having settled down to play first fiddle in the
reign of a minor, they had no desire to change the
part for that of second fiddle under the direction
of a capricious major. Most likely, too, religious
considerations weighed with them, as they cer-
tainly did with the Lutheran clergy, who, indeed,
as we have seen, owed Christina a personal as
well as a professional grudge, on account of her
behaviour in church and her loudly expressed
objections to long sermons. Already, before she
arrived, those sermons began to be heard through-
out the land, like the warning rumbles of an
approaching thunderstorm which would presently
burst and be dangerous.
As regards Christina's own motives for seeking
to recover honours which she had so recently
renounced, little can be said with certainty. A
vague desire to "do something " for the greater
glory of the Catholic faith may have been one
—
influence at work she was always readier to
take sides in religious conflicts than to live
religiously. Resentment at slights and snubs
sustained at Rome may also have impelled her to
make herself important in Sweden for there is
;

no question that, much as she loved her liberty,

she loved importance too. Or she may have been
chiefly moved by anxiety about her financial
position, and have felt that, if she were the
P 225
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
acknowledged heir to the throne, her allowance
would be more likely to be paid regularly.
In any case she was, as people say, " asking for
trouble " when she put forward her proposal
and she did not avert it by writing compli-
mentary letters to persons in high positions,
addressing them as " cousin," and saluting
Count Brahe in particular as the Saviour of his
Country nor did she disarm suspicion by begging
;

the Governor-General of her Domains to " assure

all good Swedes that they are w^rong in dep-

recating my arrival." The good Swedes pro-

posed to without the assistance
settle that point
of her advice and there were not wanting those
;

who proposed to settle it by peremptory and

drastic action

—
" She had better," suggested Brahe he whom
she had just flattered with the title of Saviour of
his Country
—
" be sent to Aland in the charge of
an honourable and determined man."
" Would not that," asked Magnus de la
—
Gardie ^he who had once flaunted himself as
Christina's lover
—
" be rather like taking her
"
prisoner ?
" It would," replied Brahe. " That is exactly
what I mean, and I think it would be the very
best thing that could happen to her."

A thing, however, more easily said than

contrived in the case of the daughter of Gustavus
Adolphus, who had friends in Sweden as well
226
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
as enemies, and whose grievances might be
championed by foreign Powers. It was decided,
instead, to stop her at the frontier and even
;

that proved to be impossible. Christina was

above all things self-willed and, just as she
;

had insisted upon going to Paris in spite of the

hints of Mazarin, so now she insisted upon coming
to Stockholm in spite of the hints of Count
Brahe. Her reply to the letter which he caused
to be handed to her by Linde, the son of her
old nurse, was courteous, but curt

" My Cousin, — I esteem you so highly that

I cannot possibly feel offended by any senti-
ments which you express and you use such
;

flattering language in your communication, that

I extremely to find myself placed in
regret
circumstances in which it is incompatible with
my honour to follow your advice."

So she waived him aside and she also waived

;

Linde aside, though he had been authorised to

stop her by with the result that the
force ;

Swedish Court, though it wanted her just as

little as the French Court, had to make be-

lieve, like the French Court, that she was its

honoured guest. She was received in the very
apartments which she had once occupied as
—
Queen, conducted to them by the boy-king
himself ;and she promptly converted one of
the rooms into a chapel, and made arrangements
for hearing mass.
227
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
So far she had triumphed ; but that was
the end of her triumph. Her reception was
rather Uke that of a mother-in-law who insists
upon paying a visit to her daughter's household
at an inconvenient season, and then, not content
with having intruded, proceeds to turn the
household upside down. The King, of course,
was too young to protest, and the Queen-Dowager
may have been too mild or too polite and ;

Christina was popular with the common people.

But the clergy and the nobility were as stubborn
as rocks, and no headway was to be made with
them. They had allowed the cannon to salute
her; but then they proceeded from slights to
snubs, and from snubs to insults.
Even her demand for money clearly due to
her was not accorded without debate. " The
Queen," said one of the debaters, when she
pressed for an immediate answer, " has taken
four or five years to prepare her claims, so she
can surely allow the clergy as many days in
which to examine them " ; and though those
claims were ultimately allowed, the political
claims were hardly even considered. That was
the first clerical vengeance on the Queen who
did not like long sermons, and there was worse
to follow. The pulpits, throughout the land,
broke out into a minatory chorus. Christina's
Catholic chapel was dismantled, and the priests
were ordered out of the country. There were
some very painful interviews; the decision
to continue Christina's allowance being com-
228
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
municated to her in the following offensive
language :

" When we reflect upon the last will and

testament of the Great Gustavus, we find it
set forth in very explicit terms that any one
who departs from our doctrine and embraces
Popery shall lose all his rights and possessions in
the Kingdom of Sweden. We are willing, how-
ever, that Her Majesty shall continue to enjoy
the revenues granted to her, not in virtue of
the agreement entered into at the time of her
abdication, but simply and solely in view of
reputation and of the signal merits of her
ancestors."

It was added that the Lutherans were well

aware of the Catholic doctrine that faith need
not be kept with heretics, that Christina had
shown gross contempt for the religion of her
fathers, by changing her name from Augusta to
Alexandra, and that the Lutherans were, there-
fore, under no obligation to keep faith with her
with much more to the same effect, which first
reduced Christina to tears, and then roused her
to rhetoric

" We knowvery well what the Pope wants,"

said old Archbishop Lenaeus. " We know his
zeal for our souls."
" I know the Pope better than you do,"
retorted Christina, " and I am quite sure he
229
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
would not give four crowns for the souls of the
whole lot of you."

And then there was another exchange of

compliments, in the course of which Christina
made a final allusion to —
her bete noire

" But why did you desert the true Lutheran

faith ? " asked the Archbishop's chaplain.
" Why ? Because I was disgusted with your
long and idiotic sermons," rejoined the Queen.

The honours of the interview were with her ;

but her ordeal was not yet over. She was, as it

were, to be stabbed in the dark by the Bishop
of Abo, who wrote letters, relating that he had
seen her in tears, and adding a gloss of his own :

that her tears were due to repentance of

her change of religion. That, as it seemed to
Christina, was the unkindest cut of all. She
demanded that the Protestant prelate should
be punished for denying that she was a good
Catholic and she concluded with a threat which
;

must have had a shocking significance to all

those who had heard of the fate of Monaldeschi

" Should I, despite my expectations, be so

unfortunate as to fail to obtain due satisfaction
through Your Majesty's intervention, I trust
that Your Majesty will not be surprised if I
should myself take steps to bring down upon
this Bishop's head a punishment adequate to
230
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the enormity of his crime and the intolerable
dishonour which he has tried to inflict upon
me."

A threat, as one cannot but suppose, to slay

the Bishop of Abo, as she had slain her own
—
Grand Equerry, merely because he had accused
her of regretting Lutheranism and weeping be-
cause she had been untrue to it. The disparity
between the offence and the vengeance con-
templated is, perhaps, an indication, for what
it may be worth, that, if we could sift the

charges against Monaldeschi, we should find a

good deal them than Christina's champions
less in
believe ; and the outburst is, at any rate, a
further proof that Christina near the
lived
border-line of hysteria, and that nerve-storms
are the best explanation of her eccentricities.
The Bishop, however, was not to be cut to
pieces in a Swedish Palace ; and the only visible
effect of his affront was to expedite Christina's
departure. This is how we find her announcing
it to the Governor of her Domains

" For Heaven's sake send me my money,

that I may be able to make haste and leave
this country, where they persecute me so
cruelly. I assure you that, if only I could get
my money, I would not stay here an hour
longer ; and I would rather perish in poverty
elsewhere, than live in Sweden, subject to daily
insults. ... If you have any affection for me,
231
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
arrange things in such a way that I may be
able to start at the earliest possible moment
for I give you my word of honour that I shall
not stop a single instant after my affairs are
settled."

And so—her affairs being

settled more or
less
—her nerve- storm whirled her back to Hamburg.

232
 CHAPTER XX
Life at Hamburg— Manifold preoccupations—The Mrs. Jellyby
of the North — Return to Rome— Social — Christina's
life

attitude towards the Roman ladies — Questions of etiquette

— Christina the role of peacemaker— Further financial
in
embarrassments — Decision to pay yet another visitto
Sweden

At Hamburg, Christina lingered about a year.

People were kind, and made her comfortable ;

and the seventeenth century was a leisurely age

in which nothing, unless it were murder, was
done in a hurry. One can suggest no other
reason why it should have taken her twelve
months to place all the threads of her financial
affairs in the hands of the Jew Texeira, who
was thenceforward to be her banker.
Slie thought that she was busy she may ;

even have thought that she was profitably

occupied. One is compelled sometimes to think
of her as the Mrs. Jellyby of the North, as well
as its Minerva, —mistaking movement for life,

and persuaded that time spent fussily was time

spent well. Though nothing was to come of all
her labours, her hands were full of work, and
her head was full of projects. It occurred to
her to simplify her banking operations by
searching for the philosopher's stone, while, at
233
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the same time, pledging her credit for the cost
of a crusade against the Heathen Turk, and
compassing sea and land to make one proselyte
for the Catholic Church. One can sum it all
up by saying that she was very busy, doing
nothing in particular.
In the matter of the crusade it may very
well be that the bulk of her work was suggested
by her secretary in order to justify his stipend.
It had been begun before she left Sweden,
and was to be continued after her return
to Rome. Reams of paper were covered
with circular letters, addressed in various
languages to various potentates the principal
;

circular being copied by hand no less than

ninety-eight times. The secretary was also
dispatched on a tour, to discuss the details of
the scheme with those whom it concerned.
But all without result, —
except that the
secretary got his salary. The hour had not
yet come for the last crusader to ride into
Byzantium and hear mass in Saint Sophia and ;

Azzolino wrote, with melancholy cynicism, to

a friend

" The Queen is very apt to take things up

and drop them again before they are half
finished."

Another of her abortive schemes was one

for obtaining concessions for Catholic worshippers
in Protestant countries. Some of the potentates
234
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
addressed on that subject did not even trouble
to answer Christina's letters others pointed
;

out to her that, in order to obtain these

concessions, it would be necessary to accord
equivalent concessions to Protestant worshippers
in Catholic countries and Christina was con-
;

strained to admit that she had not thought of

that. Her proposals on the subject to the
French Court were accompanied by requests
for salaried appointments for sundry of her
—
friends and servants valets and chambermaids
as well as captains of the Guard and the —
response to these requests also was in the
negative : which is not very surprising in
view of what had happened at Fontaine-
bleau.
Equally unsuccessful, of course, were the
experiments in the transmutations of metals,
conducted with the help of the alchemist Borri
but we must not charge Christina with excep-
tional credulity because Borri deceived her.
She was not his only royal victim, he also —
fooled the King of Denmark, persuading that
monarch to build him, at enormous cost, a
portable laboratory which a team of oxen
carted from Palace to Palace, in the train of
all the royal progresses. The reason which he
ultimately gave for not imparting his secrets
to Christina was that he did not like her well
enough and it is, at any rate, quite certain
;

that neither she nor any one else ever learnt

any useful alchemy from him, and that he ended
235
'
COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
his days in one of the dungeons of the Holy
See.
The one success, in short, which did attend
Christina's activities the
at Hamburg was
conversion of Professor Lambecius, whom she
was the better able to influence because she
found him in distress. He had fled from his
professorship because he could not keep order
in his class, and because his enemies had accused
him of heterodoxy and he had married a wife
;

with whom he lived unhappily. Consequently

he lent a willing ear to Christina's suggestion
that he should desert his wife and become a
Catholic and he never had any reason to regret
;

the step. The Emperor made him his Chief

Librarian at Vienna, where he wrote many
Latin epigrams in Christina's praise

" Perfugium Musis, quo non praestantius ullum

Sol oriens terris, sol videt occiduus,

Lambecium, regina, tuum quae fortis iniquae

Casibus et tristi susti'ahis invidiae."

Et cetera, et cetera.
And so back to Rome, where, this time, she
was well received, —
everything forgiven and
forgotten, met —
by Cardinals at the entrance
of the City, and conducted straight to the Pope,
whose feet she was privileged to kiss. One of the
dispatches of the Venetian Ambassador shows us
what sort of a figure she cut at the audience

" Her hair was tied up with ribbons of various

236
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
colours, arranged at random, and was sprinkled
with the dust of travel instead of toilet powder.
A veil, attached to the back of her head, hung
over her shoulder, and was gathered up under
one of her arms. She wore a man's just-au-corps,
and a skirt so transparent that one could see the
breeches underneath it that skirt constituting
;

her sole article of specifically feminine attire."

If the Pope was shocked, he did not show it

and now, at last, Christina was free, or very

nearly so, to live that life of cultivated ease
which she believed to be the one thing she had
dreamt of since the day of her abdication.
Her new home in the Riario Palace was not
yet quite ready to receive her but she took
;

possession of it in January 1663. It was not

only a palace, but also a museum, a picture
gallery, and a library, filled with the produce of
the plunder of the Thirty Years War, supple-
mented by many purchases, including one hun-
dred and thirty pieces of magnificent tapestry.
The gardens were laid out with taste, and there
were forty-five horses in the stables. A Court,
composed for the Queen by Azzolino, included a
Duke, who was the brother of a Cardinal, and a
General who had once borne arms against Gus-
tavus Adolphus. The gentlemen-in-waiting num-
—
bered twenty among them Sir Robert Dudley,
a descendant of a natural son of the Earl of
Leicester, whom the Emperor had made Duke of
—
Northumberland, and, if there were no maids-of-
237
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
honour, that was because Christina declined to
have any woman about her of higher rank than
that of chambermaid.
—
Roman society, too, was affable, the Pope
himself called ;and, if the Roman ladies did
not call in great numbers, the only reason was
that Christina did not appear to be particu-
larly pleased to see them when they did so,
but kept them standing, like inferiors, instead
of asking them to be seated like guests and
equals. It was her way of hinting to them
that their conversation bored her and it was
;

against her principles to allow herself to be

bored. The sex, birth, and pretensions of her
interlocutors made no difference to her. We
read, in an Ambassador's dispatch, that when
a certain nobleman " of ancient lineage but
only moderate talents " condoled with her on
the apparent loneliness of her life, she rejoined
curtly :
" I would rather spend three days alone
than half an hour in your society."
She had abundant opportunity, however, of
meeting men who did not bore her scholars,
:

artists, and men of science. These had the run

of her library, and her collections, and were
only asked, in return, to entertain her with
cultivated conversation. She herself spent long
hours in her library, and other long hours in
her laboratory. The search for the philoso-
pher's stone was forbidden by the Church,
but she nevertheless engaged in it ; she and
Azzolino together. The library was specially
238
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
rich in books and manuscripts bearing upon this
branch of experimental chemistry and Christina
;

long lived in hope of discovering at the bottom of

a crucible the gold which she so sorely needed.
Altogether, one would have thought, she had at
last reached one of those happy backwaters of
life in which the fortunate may take their ease

and let the turbid stream flow by, untroubling

them.
But has life such backwaters ? Or do they
only exist in the harassed imaginations of the
neurotic ? It is doubtful ; but it is certain that
tranquillity in a backwater was no more for
Christina than contentment in a small provincial
town is possible for the majority of those who
flee from the exciting dissipations of cities.
Coelum' non animum mutant qui trans mare
currunt. Restlessness was in her blood, and it
distressed her to feel that the worldwas moving,
and that she was out of it. A little rest sufficed,
and then she must once more be up and doing
—
up and moving up and in evidence popping :

her head out, as it were, from her backwater, to

see how the rest of the world was getting on, and
then emerging to bear a hand in the proceed-
ings. And sometimes, of course, the need of
—
money for she could not live her own life
satisfactorily on a small income —
called her
forth.
First ofall, she was brought out of her seclusion

by a question of etiquette. The new French

Ambassador, the Due de Crequi, proposed to call,
239
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
but desired to know, before doing so, with what
ceremony he would be received. Would he be
asked to sit down ? If so, would he be asked to
sit in an arm-chair or only on a stool ? It was an
im])ortant detail, not to be left to be determined
by the extent of Christina's interest in his
conversation :there must be a protocol, and
he must be assured that Christina would abide
by its prescriptions. So there were reams of
correspondence, as the result of which it was
agreed that the Ambassador should be offered
an arm-chair if Cardinals were present, but, if
Cardinals were not present, should take a lower
place on a stool.
Next, we find Christina's tranquillity dis-
turbed by a brawl between the soldiers of the
Pope's Corsican Guard and those of the Ambas-
sador's household. What the brawl was about
one does not know, —
such brawls are often
about nothing in particular. It is said to have
originated because the Ambassador was caught
out on some gallant expedition but that state-
;

ment is not proved. In any case, the French,

being in the minority, got the worst of it. The
Ambassador was mobbed and blood was shed ;

his palace was threatened, and a page was shot on

the doorstep. One cannot discover that it was
any business of Christina's but she made it
;

her business, putting herself forward as a

peacemaker and once again there were reams
;

of correspondence. We need not trouble much

about it ; but there must be a quotation from
240
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
a letter which Christina wrote on the subject to
Azzolino

" When all is Pope will understand

over, the
that I have renderedhim an important service in
this matter. Try, once more, to persuade him
to give the Ambassador satisfaction for I fore-
;

see that there will be grave trouble if he fails to

do so. Some of the Corsicans will have to be
sacrificed. If the guilty cannot be discovered,
then the innocent must be punished, in order to
make it clear that they are not being shielded,
and that you are having recourse to no tricks in
order to protect them. My proposal may strike
you as shocking but great evils require extreme
;

remedies."

Truly it was bloodthirsty advice to give to the

Vicar of Christ ; but one can easily believe that,
to a Pope as to a Queen, a Corsican more or less
did not seem to matter much, if the sacrifice
of a few could preserve the suavity of inter-
national relations. It is no unknown thing for
the great to put that interpretation on the
doctrine that it is expedient that one man should
die for the people. The crisis passed, however,
concluding with an amiable letter in which Louis
XIV. assured Christina that it was not his practice
to " enter into rivalry with ladies except in the
matter of civility " ; and Christina's next worry
was connected with the lack of gold, alike in the
crucible and in the bank.
Q 241
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
'
Her agents in Sweden were cheating her,
and the Jew Texeira could not be persuaded to
forward money which he had not received. Of
107,000 crowns due only 58,000 crowns came
to hand and Christina found herself unable to
;

take up bills which she had accepted. Among

other creditors, her former favourite Count
Tott, now Swedish Ambassador in Paris, held
her 24,000 crowns, and was beginning to
bill for
wonder when he would be able to exchange it for
cash. He was not very pressing, but agreed to
—
take part payment in commodities, 6000 crowns
worth of chalk. Other creditors were not so
amenable and ; it became necessary to send a

trustworthy Italian named Adami —a relative of

Azzolino's —to Hamburg and Sweden, to try to
straighten matters out. He wasunexpectedly
successful and he also brought back a political
;

report which decided Christina herself to pay

Sweden yet another visit.
Her motives for going there were a subject
of speculation at the time and all that is
;

certain about them even now is that there is

no reason for believing them to have been
serious. Her attitude towards Sweden was
rather like that of a bride towards her parents'
house. She did not want to live there, but she
did not like the idea that she was unwelcome
there. Still less did she like the idea of being
excluded on account of her religious convictions by
Regents whose attitude did not reflect the general
feeling towards the daughter of the great Gustavus
242
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Adolphus ; and that was the exasperating state
of thmgs.
In 1660, as we have seen, Christina had
been deprived of her chapel and her priest,
—
even at the risk a serious one to her, as a letter
—
to Azzolino shows of her dying, unannealed.
In 1664 a Secret Commission had sat to consider
the question of her return. It had concluded
that she might come to Sweden, —
but on
conditions. Wlierever else she might claim the
privileges of extra-territoriality, she must not
claim them in Sweden. Sweden was a Protestant
country, and there must be no tampering with
its Protestantism. Not only must Christina
dispense with a chapel and a priest she must
;

not even attend mass in the chapel of a Catholic

Ambassador. Nor must she come to Stockholm
at any time when the Diet was not sitting there ;

and, if she did come, her Court must be com-

posed exclusively of Swedish Lutherans.
Such were the rigorous provisions. Christina
had not been officially informed of all their
details, but had received the information from
private correspondents. Naturally, she had no
intention of submitting to them but they were
;

not irrevocable, and they might be revoked.

Adami reported that they had not been carried
without considerable opposition, that their strict
application was improbable, and that Christina
had partisans in the country, even among the
nobility and clergy.
That was enough for Christina in her restless
243
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
mood :a challenge to be up and doing, and to
assert herself. She took the challenge up, and
we once more find her and her small suite
speeding along the high roads of Italy and
Germany.

244
 CHAPTER XXI
The second sojourn at Hamburg— Christina's offears assassina-
tion— Her manner of — Her correspondence with
life

Azzolino— Her that

fears his piety prevent him from
will
being her lover— A fancy dress ball

There is a good deal that is typical in the

story of Christina's second journey to the
North. Though it was mainly concerned with
the promotion of her material interests, she pre-
faced it with a " retreat " in a Carmelite nunnery ;

and then she raced to Hamburg, with the speed

of a courier, — sometimes sleeping on straw
in poor wayside inns, and letting the weaker
members of her suite drop out by the way,
though, for all the hurry that there was, she
might just as well have walked. Hamburg was,
as it were, a junction at which she had to
wait for the next conveyance, which was so —
long in coming that it began to seem doubtful
whether it would ever come.
The financial part of her business, indeed,
made progress, though not so rapidly as she
could have wished. Adami proved honest and
capable, and enabled her, if not to reduce
her debts, at least to see her way towards their
245
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
reduction,and to remit money for the main-
tenance of her Roman establishment. But the
arrangements for her visit to Sweden hung fire.
Her reception was agreed to in principle, but
there was trouble about the details. It was
postponed until the meeting of the Diet
and the meeting of the Diet was itself put
off from month to month. The question,
too, whether Christina should be allowed
to hear mass, and to have priests about her,
in Sweden, was not to be settled in a day.
The Regents, apparently, —or the majority of
them, —^though they hesitated to forbid her the
Kingdom, wished her to get tired of waiting.
She did get tired of waiting, but still she
waited, —
she was that sort of woman. WTien
she got tired of her schemes for adventures
and crusades, she dropped them and thought
no more about them, lightly quitting one hobby
for another but this case was different. Her
;

rights, her dignity, and her income were

simultaneously at stake. She was bored at
Hamburg, and from time to time she was ill
there ;she probably had malaria, and she
certainly suffered from fever and headaches.
She longed to be back at Rome, among her
books, her art treasures, and her crucibles, with
Azzolino to talk to. Rome, it seemed to her,
was the only place in the world worth living
in, and Azzolino the only man in the world worth
talking Staying at Hamburg, with the
to.
view of forcing her way into Sweden, where she
246
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
had no desire to remain, was uncommonly like
cutting off her nose to spite her face; but she
felt that the end justified the means, and that
the sacrifice ought to be made.
Two occurrences strengthened her determina-
tion to weary the Regents with her impor-
tunities instead of allowing them to tire her out
with their neglect. It was, at last, formally
intimated to her that, if she came to Sweden, she
also must dispense with religious privileges and ;

she learnt that one of her agents had lent some

of her money to the Grand Chancellor, that—
Magnus de la Gardie who had once been her
favourite, and was now the chief opponent of
her return. The proposed interference with her
religious liberty was a challenge which she could
not refuse ; she did not believe that they would
dare,— but she would see. As for the money,
she told her agent that he must recover it for her,
or repay her out of his own pocket, adding :

" Thank God and the kindness of my heart that

I do not inflict some other severer punishment
which you well deserve." He probably remem-
bered the fate of Monaldeschi and was frightened
but the money was lost beyond recovery. The
agent had no assets, and Magnus de la Gardie
had not borrowed with the intention of repaying.
Harassed nerves, however, are much in evi-
dence in the outburst and they are also much in
;

evidence throughout the correspondence with

Azzolino. Christina generally has a headache
when she writes, and is frequently afraid that
247
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
she is about to have a toothache too. In one
letter she even expresses a fear of assassination

" Texeira's timidity should surprise you.

No doubt it is excessive, but nevertheless it is
well to take precautions. The passion for
power inspires strange proceedings. In Sweden,
as elsewhere, they know how to use the dagger
and the bowl ; and, to tell you the truth, I
believe they are making their preparations to
employ both, in order to settle my hash.
My presence more embarrassing to them
is

than you think, and the country's affection for

me, great though it is, affords me no protection,
for, if I were less loved, I should have less to
fear."

She represents herself, that is to say, as in

danger, but not afraid whereas the truth
;

seems to be that she was afraid, but not in

danger. There is no reason to believe that the
Regents had any designs whatever against her
life ;and she ceased to fear such designs when
the nervous crisis passed.
Her long series of letters to Azzolino deal,
however, not only with her private affairs, but
with all subjects under the sun. They are
everything that letters can be business letters, :

love letters, and diplomatic dispatches rolled

into one. There is no sustained passion in them ;
but they generally end with a declaration
—
sometimes in cipher that the writer will be
248
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" true till death," and hopes for an
equal
fidelity in return. There are many hints that
she not quite sure of that fidelity
is hints of :

a fear that absence is not making the Cardinal's

heart grow fonder, but that he is giving grounds
for jealousy.

" You edify me very much " (she writes)

" by the moral and theological lessons which
you draw from all the accidents of life, and
I don't doubt that all your thoughts were, as
usual, of God, when you went to the French
Ambassador's to see the theatricals, and that the
two ladies who recited there, and are the delight
of Rome, merely annoyed you by catching your
eye. I suppose you set to work, like the Lord
Jesus, to convert them. A virtue so scrupulous
as yours would not have braved such a spectacle
for any other purpose."

There is an indication there that

certainly
the Cardinal's fancy has been straying, or, at
any rate, that Christina believes it to have
strayed and the passage should be read side
;

by side with another passage, mostly in cipher,

from another letter

" I thought my last cipher contained the

answer to yours, but I will now add that I hope,
by God's grace, never to do anything to offend
Him, and never to give you reason to do so
either. But this determination will not prevent
249
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
me from loving you until the hour of death •

and, since the obligations of piety prevent you

from being my lover, I will excuse you from
being my servant, for I wish to live and die
your slave."

And then, again, a little later

" Your letter of January 15 shows me that

you have, at last, become a saint for good and
all; and I congratulate you. I promise that
I will work, during your lifetime, at your
canonisation, on condition that you will work
for mine when I am dead and, in reply to
;

your sermon, I will merely tell you that I know

very well what I owe to God, to you, and to
myself, and will try to discharge the debt."

Assuredly Rubicon must have been

the
crossed before a Queen can write in that tone
to a Cardinal and the suggestion is fairly
;

obvious that the Cardinal has been fickle,

:

and is using religion as a cloak to cover

the diminution of his love. What grounds
there may have been for the suggestion one
—
cannot say, for his own contribution to the
correspondence has disappeared ; but one sur-
mises that, though he was very fond of Christina,
he also had some fear of being compromised
—
by her, perhaps to the detriment of a future
candidature for the Papacy. And it is also prob-
able, since he was very young for a Cardinal,
that he had been diverting himself.
250
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
The trouble, however, whatever its source,
was only taken seriously at occasional moments
of depression the outbursts of peevishness and
;

jealousy only cropping up here and there in the

course of communications chiefly devoted to
business and the topics of the day. If the
proof that Christina loves Azzolino occasionally
flashes out, the proof that she trusts him, leans
on him, and be advised by him, is
desires to
clear throughout. Her attachment to him, one
is made to feel, was more sentimental than
passionate, —
and perhaps the more enduring for
that reason. He is, above all else, her strong
man, whose tenderness she needs and she re- ;

veals herself to him with more candour than to

any other correspondent.
Her religious inconsistencies, in particular,
stand out, with astonishing clearness, in these
letters. She has not yet, at this stage, arrived
at mysticism. One detects no special hanker-
ing after a devout and holy life, but rather a
disposition to back Catholicism against Pro-
testantism, in the spirit in which men back
Oxford against Cambridge, or vice versa. The
note is struck on the receipt of an interesting
item of news

" We
hear from Holland that the King of
England and his Parliament have declared
themselves Catholics, and that the King and
the House of Lords are disputing with the
House of Commons, which is still obstinately
251
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
heretical. I would give my life to find that
this report is true but
; I dare not believe it,

though we know that God can work miracles,

and must not doubt either His goodness or
His power."

A pious enough sentiment, from a certain

standpoint, but no more instinct with the
real beauty of holiness than would be the
sentiments of the man who should say that he
believed God, in His divine goodness, to be
quite capable of making Oxford win the boat-
race, in spite of the odds on Cambridge. As a
gloss on the passage, we will cite another which
shows in what a worldly spirit Christina con-
tinued to take her religion. She has heard
that a certain Father Zucchi has been preach-
ing against her at Rome, and she requests
Azzolino to send her copies of the sermons.
" That," she says, " will save me the trouble
of going to Church when I am back at Rome " ;
and she continues

" Please tell Father Fozio from me that he

is wasting his time in praying God to make me

a saint for I shall never be virtuous enough

;

to become one, or wicked enough to make

hypocritical pretences."

Yet she is clearly of opinion that good

causes may be conscientiously and usefully
served by persons who make no pretence to
252
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
sanctity. That fact comes out in letters written
in expectation that the Pope will die, and a
fresh election be necessary. A Pope should be
chosen, Christina thinks, who will not, like
Alexander vii., be guilty of " nepotism " ; and
she and Azzolino must use all their influence to
that end, even though it might be easier for
them to countenance nepotism and exploit it
to their advantage

" You know that I am quite disinterested,

and that if I did consider my own interest, I

should adopt another tone but, as God has

;

given me the grace to resign so much for His

service, I must not grudge Him the rest. I should
be happy if, by the sacrifice of my life blood,
I could help God and the Church for a single day.
You who know the secrets of my heart know
that that is my most intense desire."

There are many other letters on the same

subject, but we need not trouble about them
nor need we analyse Christina's complicated
financial transactions, repeat her scraps of
or
news concerning the war between the English
and the Dutch, and the great Fire of London.
The interesting letters are those in which she
talks about herself: her affection for Azzolino,
her boredom at Hamburg, her daily occupa-
tions, and her desperate endeavours to distract
herself.
It appears that Azzolino has reproached her
253
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
with reading too much, to the detriment of her
health ; and she repUes with a long description
of her way of life. She has been prevented from
reading by a terrible cold in the head " which
would have prevented me from writing to any
one but you "

" But, if I give up reading, what on earth

am I to do ? This is a frightful country ; every-
thing that I see in it irritates and bores me.
Elsewhere it only takes four and twenty hours to
make up a day and a night here a single hour ;

lasts fourand twenty days, while the days which,

at Rome, were only of a moment's duration,
here seem to spread themselves over centuries.
... I read very little but, if you had been
;

told that I spend whole nights alone, pacing up

and down my room, you would have been told
the truth. It is also very true that I pass my
nights in weeping for my sorrows but that ; is a
secret only to be known to you and me."

A secret related, apparently, to the Cardinal's

hint that he too devout a man to be the
is now
Queen's lover. The
letter goes on to describe
how Christina spends her days when she is not ;

going through her accounts or receiving visi-

tors, she plays chess or cards with members
of her Court " But, as I cannot afford to lose
:

money, and do not wish to embarrass other

people by winning from them, we do not play for
money, but only for amusement"—
254
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" But sometimes we stop playing, to talk of
Rome, and of you, and flatter ourselves with the
prospects of our return and at such moments
;

we are tolerably happy, for this pleasant hope,

however remote it be, brings wretched exiles a
certain measure of relief."

But, meanwhile, the society ! The German

blue - stockings, who imagined that Christina
liked blue-stockings, and wished them to talk
up to her ! The German blue - stocking, in
particular, who confided to her that, as her
eyesight was weak, and she could read but little,

she confined herself to a single book, —a com-

pendium of the Philosophy of Aristotle

" I report the conversation in order to show

you what these Germans are like, when one is so
unlucky as to meet one of them who knows
—
four words of Latin, a knowledge which only
makes them bigger idiots than Nature has
already made them. Imagine the pleasure I
derive from such conversations I am afraid
!

the influence will affect me, for I see it affecting

some of the Italians, and I sadly fear it is

contagious. If that should happen, you must

prepare yourself to be bored, as I doubt not
that you are already by the perusal of this
letter, which doe's not deserve to be forgiven
for the foolish nonsense contained in it."

And while she was bored, Christina was also

255
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
ill not seriously ill, but constantly incommoded
:

by colds, headaches, toothaches, and rheu-

matisms. The letters are full of complaints
that this, that, and the other article of food and
drink upsets her ; and it is evident that she
and her attendants knew little of medicine and
less of hygiene. Perhaps she was wise in resist-
ing the advice of the doctor who exhorted her
to be bled, and preferring a game of battledore
and shuttlecock. But she was certainly wrong in
sitting all day in cold rooms, because she did not
like the stuffy atmosphere which stoves engender
and her attempt at a " milk cure " was hopelessly
unscientific. She tossed off ten glasses of milk
in quick succession, and then, feeling unwell,
came to the conclusion that milk disagreed with
her, —
especially the Hamburg milk, which was
brought from a distance and adulterated on the
way. But she concludes

" It seems clear, however,that all my maladies

have their source in the spleen. I expect, how-
ever, that the air of Rome will cure them, and
I don't doubt that you know why I think so."

Azzolino's society, that is was the only

to say,
remedy for spleen in which Christina had great
confidence but she nevertheless resolved to
;

take certain provisional measures against it

by giving a fancy dress ball. It seems likely
that she felt the greater need of some such
diversion because, when inspecting some col-
256
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
lector's cabinet of medals, she had found one
which she did not like, struck in commemoration

of her own departure from Sweden. The ob-

verse of it bore a crown, together with the Latin
legend Et sine te. She had had it struck herself,
not realising the double entente but she now
;

perceived that it might mean, not only that

she could get on very well without Sweden, but
also that Sweden could get on very well without
her. So she burst into tears.
But the entertainment with which she hoped
to cheer herself was none the less gloriously
gay. Two leading members of her Court worked
day and night, as stage managers, to turn a tennis
court into a theatre for the performance of a
ballet the Enchanted Palace of Armida, with
:

Characters from the Works of Tasso. The Lord

High Constable Wrangel made haste to recover
from eczema, in order that he might figure
in it as Godfrey of Bouillon. Christina herself
crossed the stage at the head of a procession
of slave girls, richly bejewelled, but loaded with
chains, —a tactful hint, perhaps, to Azzolino,
that her heart was still in servitude to him, in
spite of his piety and infidelity.
Everybody who was anybody in Hamburg
was present and everything passed off splen-
;

didly. " In order to avoid quarrels," as Chris-

tina notes, the cavaliers drew lots for their
places at table and their partners. The pre-
liminary banquet lasted for four hours, a long —
time for masqueraders weighed down by ancient
B 257
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Roman armour. After the table was cleared,
there was a lottery ; and Christina, winning
the prize herself, made a present of it to
Countess Wrangel. Then the dancing began,
and Christina took part
lasted for five hours.
in with verve and entrain. " The spectators,"
it

says one of the guests, " declared that she

looked like a goddess who had descended from
heaven " but she was so tired, when the
;

party was over, that she sent for the doctor,

and consented to be bled to the extent of half
—
a pint, an operation which, we are told,
" restored her flagging appetite."
And so the time passed until the date for
the long-deferred journey to Sweden arrived.

258
 CHAPTER XXII
The second expedition to Sweden — Christina insists upon hear-
ing mass in defiance of the law— Her priest ordered out
of the country — She herself decides to go too — She calls

for post-horses and hurries back to Hamburg

In the end a departure, already so frequently

postponed, had to be adjourned again, owing
to bad weather and it was not until the end
;

of April 1667 that Christina started. But the

expedition was a game of cross-piuposes. The
players lost their tempers in the encounter first ;

and the end, which came quickly, was a fiasco.

Motives on both sides were mixed. The
Regents did not wish to be openly discourteous
to the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus but ;

they did not want interference with Swedish

affairs from Christina Alexandra, the convert
to Popery. Their idea was, therefore, to pay
her a few compliments and get rid of her.
What she herself desired is not so clear for she ;

gave different accounts of her intentions to

different people. To some she announced that
her sole object was the settlement of her
financial affairs, —
that as soon as these were
in order, she should make haste back to Rome ;

to others that she hoped to obtain permission

to practise the rites of her religion, and to
259
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
spend the remainder of her Hfe in Sweden,
practising them.
It is say which, if either,
impossible to
of the two statements was intended to deceive.
Consistency was never Christina's strong point
and she does not seem even to have known
whether she wished to favour Cathohc pro-
pagan dism in Sweden. She had recently op-
posed a proposal for sending Jesuit evangelists
there. " It would be equivalent," she said,
" to sending them to their deaths and as ;

for converting the regular Swedish Lutherans,

that is a sheer impossibility." On another
occasion, she quoted, with approval, Turenne's
saying "I am a Catholic, but my sword is
:

Protestant." But we also find her saying, in

one of the letters to Azzolino

" They have recently published here a most

shocking edict against the Catholics you can;

guess all that that implies. And yet I under-

take to say that, if the new Pope would spend
as much every year on missionary enterprise
in these countries as Cardinal Chigi spends
on his dogs and horses, miracles would be
worked in spite of all the obstacles put in the
way of the missionaries. They would not take
so many and such severe precautions if they
did not know how necessary it is for them to
obstruct the progress which our religion would
be sure to make in Sweden, if pains w^ere taken
to spread it."
260
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
The inconsistency is glaring ; and it gave
the Regents their handle in case Christina should
refuse to lend herself to the game of make-
believe which they designed to play with her.
If she joined in the game, they would close
their eyes, for a little while, to her religious
delinquencies. If she did not join in it, then
they would open their eyes, and make things
unpleasant for her. It was not ambition which
forbade her to join in it, but pride, and anger
at the presumption of former subjects in dic-
tating to lier. So there soon was trouble and
loss of temper.
Presumably Christina lost her temper the
more easily because she was ill, and because she
still feared that Azzolino did not love her as

well as she loved him. In the letter written

to him on the eve of her departure, she com-
plains of biliousness, nausea, thirst, nervousness,
insomnia, and a pain in the side

" Worse than ever " (she protests) " at

present, and continually more troublesome
during the last ten or twelve days, though it
has never altogether left me since I first felt it.
Still, it has not, so far, prevented me from

enduring the fatigue which I have to undergo,

though I don't know what the end of it will be."

And then, turning to other branches of the

subject

" God willing, I shall not fail to start to-

261
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
morrow, in spite of the advice of all my friends,
who assure me, wdth a unanimous voice, that
I shall risk both my life and my liberty by going
to Sweden. But that is nothing to me. I
care so little for my life in the state to which I
am reduced, that I do not in the least mind
losing it and since I have also made up my
;

mind never to see you again, there remains noth-

ing in life for me to regret."

As for her plans

" I shall stay only a short time at Stock-

holm. If death does not prevent me, I shall
be back at the end of a month at the latest
and if I can manage to get away in a fortnight,
I shall not remain for a month. There is nothing
for me to do in Sweden, except to show myself."

And that though she has just told Azzolino

that she wishes to remain in Sweden for ever
The letter concludes with directions for the
conduct of the establishment at Rome

" I am desperate at the thought that I am

leaving you without money. You must sell,
pawn, borrow, and fear nothing. As soon as
I get to Sweden, I will see that all your needs
are supplied."

Then she was off, on April 28, escorted

for some distance from Hamburg by Wrangel
262
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and other nobles. She was ill, —the recorded
symptoms are those of malaria the weather
;

was shockingly bad, and the accommodation in

the inns uncomfortable. In one of them she
had a bed made up on the floor of an apartment
which was " more like a cellar than a bedroom."
Her physician ran out of medicine but Terlon, ;

the French Ambassador, came to the rescue,

sending her not only her doctor, but his cook,
and providing her, not only with drugs, but
with beef-tea. She was, she told Azzolino,
within an inch of death and convalescence
;

found her very melancholy.

" I do not think" (she wrote) " that my life

will be a long one. If only I had paid my debts,
I should die happy, regretting only that I had
livedtwo years too long, seeing that it is about
"
two years since

The phrase is unfinished, and presumably

relates to the state of Christina's heart. Having
penned it, and broken it off, she crossed the
Sound and then the great game of make-believe
;

and cross-purposes began.

No fault could be found with the splendour
of the reception. The guns of the fleet saluted,
and Senators awaited the arrival of the royal
guest. Magnus de la Gardie's brother Pontus
was there with a carriage. Seven hundred
cavalry and a regiment of infantry presented
arms and the military bands were playing.
;

263
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
The banquet welcome was sumptuous and
of ;

the house to which Christina was escorted was

furnished as a palace, with abundance of rich
tapestry, and a marvellous bed of state, hung
with gold-embroidered green velvet. There was
no failure of respect, no breach of etiquette. But
then, unfortunately, Christina blundered, and
broke the unwritten rules of the game.
The rumour had circulated that her suite
contained several hundred Jesuits. It contained,
in fact, a single priest, who was also her secretary,
and was supposed to be nothing more. The
Regents, in short, were prepared to be blind,
if only Christina would be discreet but Christina
;

would not be discreet. Her head was turned.

She believed that, having come, and been seen,
she had also conquered and she decided to assert
;

herself. Consequently she flung down her chal-

lenge by ordering the priest to say mass in the
hall. He said it, and the fat was in the fire.
The incident was reported and those of the
;

Regents and the nobility who did not want

Christina in Sweden knew that they had got
their handle.
They let her come a little farther. Her
cortege, comprising 140 persons, left Helsingborg
on May 18.She suffered no hardships or
privations. Wherever she arrived, the people
cheered her, and she found a banquet prepared
—
three copious banquets a day in a splendidly
decorated hall, with a canopy of state spread
above the seat appointed for her. The leisurely
264
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
progress took the party, in six days, to Jonkop-
ing her priest saying his daily mass without
;

let or hindrance. But at Jonkoping Pontus

de la Gardie received a dispatch from the
Regents, instructing him to tell Christina that
the presence of a priest in Sweden could not
be tolerated.
It was the law, and Christina knew it a :

law without any schedule of exceptions, apply-

ing to priests in her suite as well as to
priests in general. But she was none the less
angry on that account. She no more expected
the law to be enforced against her than the
laws against trespassing are enforced against a
landlord's personal friends. Her first impulse
was to turn on her heel and go home in a
temper but Pontus de la Gardie, who was
;

a gentleman discharging a painful duty, per-

suaded her to write to the King and await
his answer.
The King was a boy of twelve who neither
attended to, nor even opened, his own corre-
spondence; the letter addressed, as a matter of
form, to him, was really meant for the Regents.
It was not a diplomatic letter, but the letter of a
woman whose temper was beyond the hope
lost
of recovery. Christina was " much surprised,"
and " had never expected " to be treated in such
a manner. Such civility as she had received in
Sweden was only her due and the annoyance;

to which she was now exposed dispensed her

from the necessity of expressing any thanks for
265
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
it. She would show, by leaving the country,
that she was not one of those who sacrifice their
religious convictions to material advantages.
And she concluded

" I should have turned back this very even-

ing if Count Pontus had not urgently entreated
me to wait to hear again from Your Majesty,
and see whether Your [^Majesty has not sufficient
regard for me to alter his decision. Failing
that, I shallno longer be able to receive any
courtesiesfrom you, but shall instantly take
my departure. At the same time, in order to
remind you what you are and what I am, I
beg you to believe that you are not the sort
of person from whom people in my position
take orders.
" In spite of your singular proceedings, my
brother and nephew, I remain, your good sister
and aunt, C. A."

Decidedly it was the letter of a woman who,

if not actually looking for trouble, was, at least,

going half-way to meet it, and the trouble met her

on her arrival, three days later, at Norrkoping.
She had intended to entertain all the members
of her suite there, at a great banquet but,
;

before the dinner-bell had rang, Count Pontus

communicated the answer to her letter. The
priest, it was intimated, must not stand upon
the order of his going, but must go at once.
Nor must Christina herself attend mass openly
266
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
even at the house of the French Ambassador,—
she might only do so if she made the excuse that
she was paying a morning call, and even that —
indulgence would only be extended to her for
a few weeks. Naturally the proposal touched
her pride to the quick.

"
What !
" (she exclaimed). " I to wait upon
Pomponne ! If he made that proposal to me
himself, I would have him driven away with
sticks Yes, I would do that even in his
! own
"
King's presence !

She added that she should accept no

further hospitality from the Swedish Govern-
ment, but should go at once; and she pro-
ceeded to dismiss the cortege and demand
an ordinary, unofficial traveller.
post-horses, like
It was with the greatest difficulty that Count
Pontus, anxious, above all things, to keep up
appearances, persuaded her to accept his escort
to the frontier he only succeeded in doing so
;

by representing that the Governors of fortresses

might possibly detain her if she travelled alone.
Whereupon she melted, told liim that the free
exercise of her religion was more to her than
all the crowns in the world, and invited him to

supper.
At supper she drank the health of the King
—
and the Regents, but that toast was obviously
ironical. Then she packed with the haste of a
tripper who fears to miss a train, and was off,
267
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
according to her own account, "like a flash of
lightning." Her indignation, when kept waiting
for horses, was furious and even the tears of
;

her escort and the cheers of the populace only

partially comforted her. The only endurable
delays were those devoted to hearing the
forbidden mass in defiance of authority; she
only heard it, as she herself says, " to show
that she was not afraid of doing so."
It was not very dignified but, seeing that
;

Count Pontus persisted in keeping up appear-

ances and compelled others to keep them up,
she recovered a portion of her dignity at the
last. All the officers of the Helsingborg garrison
escorted her to the landing-stage and she
;

pulled herself together, thanked Count Pontus

for his courteous attentions, and gave him
a suitable message to the King " that she was
:

too proud to complain of his treatment of her,

and too deeply attached to her country to seek
to avenge herself."
And so back to Hamburg, restless as ever,
with nothing accomplished, but certain lessons
learnt,—the chief lesson being, perhaps, that
those who have eaten their cake cannot also have
it. Those who accompanied her were tired to
death by their exertions. Pontus de la Gardie
could hardly stand on his feet. The chamber-
maids, "sunburnt, travel- stained, and dirty as
gipsies, hardly dared to show themselves."
Christina alone, invalid though she was, looked
as fresh as if she had not left home. She had
268
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
depended upon those nerves of hers, and her
nerves had pulled her through.
And now she had plenty of time to think
things over and make up her mind what to do
next.

269
 I
CHAPTER XXIII
Back at Hamburg — Election of a new Pope — Christina
illuminates in honour of Clement ix.— Her windows
broken by the mob — Theriot quelled by her suite

Further correspondence with Azzolino

Christina's position at Hamburg continued to

resemble that of the heir to a valuable, but
heavily encumbered, estate, the realisation of
which involves more worry than it is worth,
because the task of straightening things out has
to be performed in uncongenial surroundings,
and looks as if it would never be finished. She
was longing to be back at Rome, with Azzolino,
even when she was complaining of his coldness
and threatening to spend the rest of her days
in Sweden; and she detested Germany and
the Germans. " A stinking desert " had been
her description of the country she had passed
through to get to Hamburg and now we find
;

her speaking of " this accursed place," and

declaring that the Cossacks, or any people
whom her correspondent may like to name, are
" rather less barbarous than the Germans."
She adds, with a touch of picturesqueness, that
even the mules which brought the luggage of some
Italian traveller were disgusted with the German
mules.
270
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Still, though was business which detained
it

her at Hamburg, business did not occupy all

her time and thoughts. It was only at inter-
vals that there was any business to attend to,
and she had to fill her enforced leisure as best
she could with games of chess and cards,
:

perhaps also with games of battledore and shuttle-

cock, and certainly with the quest for the phil-
osopher's stone. It is a proof for what it may be
worth of her orthodoxy, that she dropped her
alchemist like a hot potato when Azzolino told
her that he had been excommunicated. And
that though she was on the track of a chemical
solution, said to be still more potent than
the philosopher's stone, invented by the
—
chemist Glauber, a very different composi-
tion, evidently, from the ordinary Glauber's
salts !

Now and again a distinguished came

visitor
to see her but such visits were not an unmixed
;

pleasure. Standing on the threshold of Sweden

like a Peri at the gate of Paradise, Christina
stood firmly on her dignity ; with the result
that knotty problems of etiquette presented
themselves. That was the case when her
cousin, the sister of the Elector of Brandenburg,
proposed to call, but first sent a messenger
to inquire whether she would be offered a
chair, and, if so, whether the chair would be
an arm-chair. Christina replied that that was
a concession which she could not make, as
she never made it to any one, but that she
271
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
would promise not to affront her visitor by
taking a seat in her presence. On that under-
standing the call was paid, and the two royal
cousins conversed, standing, for the space of
about three hours.
Another incident was supplied by the death
of Pope Alexander vii., and the election of
Clement ix. The new Pontiff had, as Cardinal
Rospigliosi, been one of Christina's friends.
He was a Cardinal of culture, and a dramatic
author, who had written the libretti of several
operas, one of which had been dedicated to
Christina and performed in her honour in the
Barberini Palace. Consequently, though Ham-
burg was a Protestant city, she resolved to give
a fete to celebrate his elevation. Her fountains
should flow with wine for the intoxication of the
devout and when night fell the Palace should
;

be illuminated.
The wine w^as welcome but the illuminated
;

set-piece, —
the tiara with the keys, and the
inscription Clemens ix. font. max. vivat.
:
—
was not. The mob having drunk the wine,
proceeded to throw stones at the windows.
The royal party was besieged, and a messenger
was sent to the Governor of the town to ask
for help. He replied that the distvu'bance
was no business and that he should not
of his,
interfere with it. Meanwhile there was a danger
of the doors being forced, and the garrison had
to help itself. " The Queen had some reason
to believe," runs the oflicial account, " that it

272
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
was time for her to prepare to die " but she ;

was resolved that she would not die alone

" As there seemed to be no prospeet of rescue,

she ordered a volley to be fired. She did
. . .

so because she judged, very properly, that her

party was in a tight corner and must take a
risk. The order was no sooner given than it
was executed, with excellent results. A number
of persons were killed on the spot, and several
others were wounded. Then we sallied, and gave
them such a fright that they all ran away."

Whereupon the Governor at last awoke to

and had the street
his responsibility for order,
cleared and Christina took refuge with the
;

Swedish Resident while her own house was being

repaired. The next day, she ventured into the
crowd, to inspect the execution of the repairs ;

" and though rage and terror were visibly

imprinted on the countenances of the people,
no one dared to lift a hand against her." So
she was very well pleased with herself, and
wrote to Azzolino to say so

" God" (she wrote) " has preserved us by

a miracle. With the help of a dozen men, I
—
withstood eight thousand, I might even say
the whole city of Hamburg. . The city has
. .

received a snub which it will not forget and ;

I flatter myself that I have worthily maintained

the Pope's honour and my own. The details
s 273
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
will come with better grace from others than
from me."

A characteristic outburst, showing us Chris-

tina's nerves in full the defiant
activity :

courage to which fear inspired her in paths

which she was not born to tread, and her ob-
stinate refusal to show herself ashamed of any
violent deed to which fright impelled her. It
was the Monaldeschi story over again, albeit
with meaner victims, at whose death even
the Government whose subjects they were
displayed no resentment. Azzolino does not
appear to have protested but there was no
;

special reason why he should. He did not

know the facts, but only Christina's version
of them, —
and he did know Christina.
So the correspondence drifted back to her
financial affairs and her plans. Once more it
was a question whether she should or should
not go to Sweden on business. It was per-
missible for her to go but it was not permissible
;

for her to take a priest with her. " I shall

await your reply before making up my mind,"
she wrote to Azzolino and then she stated her
;

own views

" The uncertainty of life alarms me and ;

I am afraid to take the risk of dying without

confessing. Suppose I did die in Sweden, with-
out a priest near me, would God forgive me,
and should I be able to forgive myself for having
274
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
faced this peril for the sake of temporal interests
which truly are not worth the anxiety which
this thought causes me ? It is true that I am
in good health, and strong and vigorous but ;

might not my health fail me at any moment ?

A fever, a pleurisy, or any other of the many
accidents to which I am liable, may easily carry
off the most robust in four-and-twenty hours."

And she was not really robust, but was only

pretending to be so because it suited her argu-
ment. " This accursed climate," she wrote
presently, " spares no one " and as for the
;

German doctors

" I would rather take advice from my

horse than from them. They are beasts and
ignoramuses. They kill their patients with a
fiegm and gravity which is worse than death
itself. They know nothing whatever about
my constitution or my way of life, and expect
me to die whenever I am bled. It is in-
credible to them that one can keep alive if one
drinks nothing but water."

That one of her moods; but her moods

is

vary. We
turn a few pages of the correspond-
ence and find her defying the very dangers
which have just made her tremble. The plague,
it seems, or some very similar malady, is raging

in Sweden; but this time she shakes her fist

in the face of the Death Angel
275
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" The mortality is terrible, but the fear of
death shall never prevent me from doing my
duty."

By doing her duty, it is to be observed, she

merely means straightening out her affairs and
securing the permanence of her revenues but ;

let that pass. She goes on to say that she

refuses to be intimidated by threats to deprive
her of spiritual consolation

" I shall take my priest with me as far as I

can and if they require me to send him away,
;

I shall obey them, and go on to Stockholm

without a priest. The circumstances are not
what they were on the last occasion, and I
wish to show them that the pretext is not
good enough to stop me if I choose to come."

Nor is the danger of pestilence the only

danger which she apprehends and she is
;

surprised and hurt that Azzolino does not

realise that fact

" All the ruling faction in Sweden fears me

and detests me all their subjects love me
;

and desire to have me among them. Now you

can understand what are, and must be, my
hopes and fears. I am feared and hated only
because I am loved and my glory and my
;

fortune are the source of all my apprehensions.

Time will teach you all these truths. I, for my
276
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
part, do not intend to speak to you of them
again."

But the not so simple as all that.

situation is

Something that Azzolino has written has evi-

dently pained Christina, and persuaded her, for
the moment, that she is tired of life

" I assure you that I do not value my life

so much that I should hesitate to risk it on this
occasion, if I were quite sure that I risked noth-
ing else. I have lost everything which could
make life agreeable to me ; and, after that loss,
I feel neither able nor anxious to take any
trouble to protect it. In short, the day of my
death will be the happiest day of my life,
because it will be the last."

Whereby she pretty obviously means two

things : that there is a danger for her, if she
goes to Sweden, of imprisonment, as well as
of assassination and that she is persuaded
;

that Azzolino does not love her any longer.

She follows up the second branch of the subject
thus

" I will tell you, for your consolation, that

the time of my return to Rome is not so close
as you seem to fear. Your felicity will not be
troubled by mypresence for any length of time ;

and if I can, as I hope, overcome the power of

the fatality which attaches me to Rome, I
277
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
propose to seek out a corner of the world where
poverty is not a disgrace as it is at Rome, and
where I shall at least have the consolation of
escaping your everlasting reproaches on the
subject."

But that was disingenuous, as the next

passage shows. Not Christina's poverty, but
her extravagance, had formed the subject of
the Cardinal's reproaches

" I shall say nothing " (she proceeds) " about

my debts. I will only point out that debts are
often incurred by people much richer than I
am, and that I have the means of paying my
debts, and intend to pay them when I can.
I respect you too much to argue the point
further."

Evidently she is angry ; but it is not on the

note of anger that she ends. Azzolino, together
with his reproaches, has sent her a manuscript
and asked her opinion of it. So she concludes

" Your comedy is very fine. It is the

antidote of your letters. But, alas my troubles
!

are real, and your only remedy for them is

poetry. But that shall not prevent me from
remaining yours ever until death. Adieu " !

So that we are warranted in quoting Aman-

tium irce amoris integratio est;and, meanwhile,
278
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
we have to follow Christina in the pursuit of a
fresh ambition, in which she was to have Azzolino
for her chief champion. Just as her restless
fancy had once cherished the dream of becoming
Queen of Naples, so now she dreamed, for a little
while, of becoming Queen of Poland.

279
 CHAPTER XXIV
Christina's candidature for the vacant throne of Poland — Her
motives for preferring it — Presumption that Azzolino
grasped at the chance of getting rid of her — Her own
indifference to the result of the election — Her candidature
regarded as ridiculous — Its failure

The sovereignty of Poland was not hereditary,

but elective ; and,permitted space, one might
if

make Polish historyfurnish a melancholy

object-lesson on the advantages of the heredi-
tary principle.
Any one might aspire to the throne the :

meanest no less than the noblest of the Poles

themselves, or some ambitious and high-handed
stranger. One of the candidates, at one of the
elections, was a Polish fiddler at the Russian
Court he left his fiddling to pursue his canvass,
;

and returned to his fiddling when the election

went against him. The throne in those circum-
stances was not the guerdon of the fittest, but
—
the prey of the strongest, or the most cunning,
or the most influentially backed and Poland;

was seldom ruled by a king who had served

an apprenticeship to the royal craft.
Nor was the election a matter which the Poles
were left to settle by themselves. Any European
280
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
potentate, from the Tsar of Russia to the Pope
of Rome, might bear a hand in it, " nmning " a
nominee, and bring both due and undue influence
to bear. Poniatowski was, it will be rememl)ered,
the nominee of Catherine the Great, whose
favourite he had been ;and his election was
largely secured by the action of Russian officers,
who occupied the gallery of the hall in which the
election was held, and prodded the electors with
their swords. The fact that he had recently
been lodged in a debtors' prison in Paris was
not held to interfere with his eligibility and ;

the final partitioning of Poland was the principal

event of his reign.
That, however, is none of our business here ;

we are only concerned with the election ne-

cessitated by the abdication of Christina's cousin,
John Casimir.
John Casimir had been King of Poland since
1648, and was the last legitimate male repre-
sentative of the House of Wasa. He might be
described, in modern slang, more accurately than
in any scientific definition, as " a queer cus-
tomer." Before being called to the throne, he
had been a Jesuit and a Cardinal, but had been
absolved from his vows and permitted to marry :

one of those interesting little facts wliich illustrate

the capacity of Popes for being all things to
all men, when there is anything to be gained

thereby, and jettisoning principles for the sake

of material advantage.
And now John Casimir's wife was dead, and
281
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
he was tired of being King of Poland, and an-
nounced his intention of retiring and reverting
to the ecclesiastical estate. Louis xiv., having
a candidate of his own for the vacant throne,
was willing to make it worth his while to do so
by presenting him with ecclesiastical benefices
yielding a net revenue of 50,000 crowns. Like
Christina at the time of her abdication, he
wanted to live his own life in his own way and
;

the kind of life which he had in mind was by no

means a devout and holy life. " On this in-
come," he cynically told the Papal Nuncio, " I
shall be able to live en galant homme " and ;

the bearing of that remark is illustrated by

the stipulations which he made when Azzolino
offered him a residence in the Papal States.
His desiderata were, he then explained, the
proximity of a monastery, plenty of good
shooting, and, la liberie des femmes, — free per-
mission, that is to say, to entertain ladies even
though of light reputation.
Decidedly, as we have said, a "
queer cus-
tomer." Poland was glad to be rid of him and ;

the Pope did not want him. It was discovered,

after his departure, that he had melted down the
crown for pocket-money and the fact that the only
;

banquets in Warsaw at which his speedy return

was toasted were banquets of loose women shows
us pretty clearly how the pocket-money had been
spent. It is not surprising, in the circumstances,
that Azzolino's offer of his country seat was
withdrawn, and that John Casimir was asked to
282
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
practise his religion " elsewhere than in the Papal
States."
But now the election was impending. There
were already four candidates in the field the :

Duke of Neuburg, the Prince de Conde, a son of

the Tsar, and Prince Charles of Lorraine and ;

now Christina came forward as a fifth candidate,

issuing her manifesto —
her election address, as it
were — in the form of a letter to the Pope's
Nuncio at Warsaw

" Seeing that Her Majesty surpasses all the

other candidates in nobility of birth, and perhaps
also from the point of personal merit, she con-
siders that she can offer herself as a candidate
without giving offence, and ought to tempt
fortune, in order to ascertain the will of God."

She went on to ask for the Nuncio's vote

and interest, declaring that she could not place
herself " in better hands than those of His Holi-
ness," and telling him what to say, on her be-
half, to the electors

" That she would never have quitted the

throne of Sweden, if Sweden had been a Catholic
country, or if there had been any reasonable
prospect of its becoming so that it would be
;

unjust to prefer some stranger, less worthy of

occupying the throne of her ancestors and ;

that it was distinctly to the interest of Poland

to choose her because, as Her Majesty was too
283
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
old to had no inclination to do so,
marry,
and would, consequence, leave no heirs,
in
their freedom of choice would be unimpeded at
her death, and they would then be able to trans-
fer their favour to any other royal house that
they might prefer."

Etc. etc. and it is curious to note that,

;

while Christina was recommending herself to

the electors on the ground that she was an old
maid and intended to remain one, Azzolino was
recommending her on the opposite ground that
she was still young enough to marry and found
—
a dynasty, if required, though that consum-
mation might, a few years before, have been
prevented by " the ardour of her temperament."
The comparison of the two converging lines
of argument cannot have failed to interest the
ecclesiastical diplomatist through whose hands
they passed. His reward, if he allowed himself
to be convinced by them, was to be a Cardinal's
hat but the same promise had already been
;

made to him by one of the other candidates;

and it can be no great advantage to any
Cardinal to wear two hats at once.
Christina's motive in thus grasping at a crown
which always brought uneasiness to the head
which wore it can only be guessed at. Accord-
ing to some of her critics, she was the incon-
sistent creature of impulse according to others,
;

she was not in the least inconsistent, but ahvays

wanted to be a Queen, provided that she might
284
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
be a Catholic as well. Most likely the key to
the mystery is furnished by the fact, abundantly
established by the correspondence, that she did
not press her candidature nearly so keenly
"
as Azzolino pressed it on her behalf. He " ran
her, that is to say, and she let herself be " run."
Her affection was embarrassing, and might be
compromising to Azzolino so he preferred to
;

love her at a distance. She knew this, or, at

least, suspected it, but acquiesced, being a com-
paratively weak woman under a comparatively
strong man's influence.
So he penned a glowing testimonial to her
merits, denying or ignoring all inconvenient
facts. Not only did he, as we have just seen,
describe her as an eligible he also
spinster,
justified the execution of Monaldeschi, of which
both the Poles and the Nuncio appear to have
disapproved ; and he contradicted the state-
—
ment which we know to have been true
that she had been in receipt of a pension from
the Pope. Moreover, he advertised her as an
Amazon, who could sit her horse, all day long,
and all night long, too, if necessary, dispensing
with sleep and food. " Her courage and her
martial spirit," he concluded, "are so great
that she only needs an opportunity to dazzle
the world with them."
One can imagine, too, the reasons with
which he kept Christina herself up to the mark.
She would be well provided for on the throne of
—
Poland, no longer obliged to roam Europe, and
285
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
hang about Hamburg, a la recherche de la piece
de cent sous. She would be in a position to "do
something " for —
CathoHcism, perhaps even to
promote the cause of CathoHcism in Sweden.
It would be gratifying to her vanity to be put
forward as the Pope's nominee and her
;

reputation for piety would then stand in no

further need of witnesses. These were argu-
ments which appealed to her in certain moods :

when she felt lonely, and poor, and bored, and

restless. She did not like the idea of being
beaten in any competition in which she en-
gaged and she did like the idea of " scoring
;

off masculine rivals.

" It also pleased her,
sometimes, to picture herself, as a Queen,
leading a last crusade against the Heathen
Turk. But many passages in her letters
show that her heart was never really in the
intrigue.
She worked hard at it, indeed. She and her
secretary worked all day long for days, for weeks,

perhaps for months, at the composing and cipher-

ing of dispatches. But it is clear that, in the
main, she was only doing this to please Azzolino,
in the spirit of a child performing a task. Again
and again she expresses her satisfaction that he
is pleased with her ; again and again she lets
him see her own indifference to the result of her
—
endeavours, or even her positive desire that
they should fail. She wants to live, not at
Warsaw, but at Rome ; and the reason for her
wish is that Azzolino lives at Rome, and not
286
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
at Warsaw. The most significant passage runs
as follows :

" Hamburg, August 29, 1668.

" I have your letter of the 4th, together with

the ciphers. was pleased to perceive your zeal
I
in this Polish business, and I thank you a
thousand times for it. I send you copies of
the letters I have written on the matter to the
Nuncio. You will see how I meet the difficulties
with regard to my sex and my marriage but ;

I submit my arguments to your correction."

That is quite conventional, —quite what the

candidate might be expected to write to the
election agent whom she trusted. But then
—
comes the personal note, the proof that, if
Christina ever goes to Poland, she will cast
longing, lingering looks behind

" I do not know how I ought to wish the

matter to turn out. More than a thousand times
I have regretted having touched it; and I assure
you I should be inconsolable if it succeeded ;

for when I reflect that, if it does succeed, I shall

have to leave Rome for ever, and pass the rest
of my life among a barbarous people of whose
language and customs I am ignorant, the reflec-
tion distresses me terribly, and my only com-
fort lies in the hope that the negotiation may be
broken off. I am almost inclined to complain
of your zeal in the matter. Can it be that you
want to get rid of me ? Don't imagine that
287
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
you will be able to do that so easily. You must
make up youv mind become a Pole, too, if I
to
am elected ; and, unless you are prepared to
do your labours are in vain, for that is
so, all
the only condition on which I should accept
the offer, even if the crown, not of Poland only,
but of the Universe, were laid at my feet. Please
let me know beforehand what your intentions
are, in order that I may know what I have to
make up my mind to. It is very important
to me to be told."

That, beyond question, is the letter con-

—
taining the key to the situation, ^the proof of
the battle engaged between love and friendship.
Azzolino wants to be Christina's friend, and to
do her a good turn as such she wants his love,
;

and has no ambitions to which she is prepared

to sacrifice it. She does his bidding, indeed,
because his is the stronger will but she does
;

it half-heartedly, " riding," in modern parlance,

" for a fall," and never failing to end a letter
with the protestation that she will be true till
death, and that her one sincere desire is to
be back at Rome, enjoying Azzolino's society,
whether he wishes to see her or not.
Most likely her candidature would have failed
even if she had not ridden for a fall. The, one
consideration which disposed her to press it was
the desire to oblige the Pope

" The Pope is too good to me " (she wrote).

288
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" I cannot say how much I am obhged to him.
To me personally my success is a matter of
indifference but it will be a delight to me to
;

owe such an obligation to His Holiness. I value

his favour much more than I value the crown.
Please tell him so."

But the Pope did not really care, it would —

seem that he was only induced to appear to
care by the wire-pulling of Azzolino, whom
he had made his Secretary of State. He had
indeed recommended Christina to the Nuncio in
a letter in which he described her as " this heroine,
equally remarkable for her piety, her wisdom, and
her virile courage " but he had also sent a
;

private injunction to the effect that no use was

to be made of the letter unless Christina's
successwas certain. Clement ix., in short,
had the wisdom of the serpent which sits
coiled about the fence, ready to wriggle off
on the winning side and it was not long
;

before he saw that the winning side was not

Christina's.
For what reason the Poles would not have
her is uncertain. One reason may have been
that she would not promise to marry any
husband whom they might select for her,
but would only pledge herself not to marry
without their consent the principal reason
;

may merely have been that they preferred

some one else. The deciding scene, at any rate,
was rather odd. It took place in a confession
T 289
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
box, where the Bishop of Posnania, who was one
of the electors, besought the Nuncio to tell him,
under the seal of confessional secrecy, which of
the five candidates the Pope favoured. The
Nuncio then, tentatively, named Christina ; and
the Bishop, in reply, made many flabbergasted
signs of the cross, and implored the Nuncio to
keep the Pope's preference a secret, for fear
lest the electoral assembly should be dissolved
in laughter.
And the assembly did, in fact, jest on the
subject. It would be a good idea, said some of
them, if marry a sixth candidate
Christina were to
who had begun to be spoken
of, —
Don John of
Austria. It would be a good match, because
—
they were both ineligible, she because she was
a woman, and he because he was illegitimate.
Then they proceeded to elect a seventh candi-
date, —a certain Polish Prince named Michel
Korybut Wiesnowiecki, who is saidhave
to
burst into tears in his dread of the stormy
prospects before him.
It did not matter. In so far as Christina
had ever cared about the election, she had now
ceased to care. Her dominant desire had always
been to get back to Rome and, long before this
;

news reached her, she had straightened out her

affairs sufficiently to go there. Her letters show
us clearly how anxious she was to get there, and
why

" You will soon perceive that my misfortunes

290
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
have not changed my heart. I know you will
only hate me the more for that but what am I
;

to do ? Fate wills it so. I will try to arrange

matters so that my presence shall not importune
you unduly. ... I beg your pardon if you do
not like what I say but the fulness of my
;

heart compels me to speak. Yet fear nothing.

You shall have the pleasure of seeing the most
unhappy woman in the world withomt hearing
her comjolain of her unhappiness and, in places
;

in which every object reminds me of my past

felicity, my only desire will be for death."

And then again, a few days later

" I have nothing to tell you. I hope to see

you soon and I assure you that the two or three
;

days which I am still obliged to spend here will

seem to me the longest of my life, and I beg you
to believe that my joy in seeing you again will
be inconceivable. . . . Nothing more until the
happy moment when we meet."

And finally

" At last I am off, with all the joy of a soul

escaping from purgatory and I can only hope
;

that my stay here will be allowed to count for a

part of my sojourn in purgatory."

291
 CHAPTER XXV
The return to Rome — Friendly relations with a cultivated Pope
— The Golden Age of the Pontificate — Christina at last
lives her her
ov^^n life in way — Her patronage of
ovv^n art
and artists — Her Academy— Her benefactions
Christina desired, above all things, to be re-
ceived at Rome with distinction not merely as —
the personal friend of a cultivated Pope who
Wxote the libretti of operas, but as one who had
" done something " for the Church during her
long sojourn abroad so she wrote letters re-
;

presenting that she had actually achieved the

things which she had only attempted

" My Swedish contracts are signed, sealed,

and delivered. The Diet has granted me liberty
for the exercise of my religion, and has ordered
full satisfaction to be given to all my claims,
judging that they are all just and reasonable."

" I leave here in a vainglorious spirit, having

adjusted everything in such a manner as to give
you satisfaction. Everything is settled in Sweden.
The States have granted me all that I asked for.
I am really under too great obligations to them."

Which was not even approximately true.

292
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Christina had not obtained Hberty of worship
for Cathohcs in Sweden and she had herself
;

been forbidden to return to Sweden, and threat-

ened with deprivation of administrative rights in
her Swedish domains. Her interview with a
certain Kleihe —
a Swedish noble on whom she
—
had herself bestowed his title had been stormy.
She had interrupted his discourse, and over-
whelmed him with " unbecoming language." But
she was resolved to return in a blaze of glory, even
at the sacrifice of truth hence the letters quoted.
:

It is difficult to say whether the Pope, and Azzo-

lino, and the other Cardinals were really, for the
moment, deceived by them, or only pretended
to be deceived, for their own and Christina's
satisfaction. However that may have been, the
blaze of glory which she desired was arranged for
her.
She left Hamburg in October 1668, after a
farewell banquet, escorted, for a part of the
way, by the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg,
Field -Marshal Wrangel,and other persons of
distinction and she reached Rome towards
;

the end of November. The valet whom she

sent ahead to announce her approach was
presented by the Pope with gold and silver
medals and His Holiness also proposed to
;

defray the cost of journey through the

her
Papal States, and ordered a sumptuous banquet
for her at Castel Nuovo, where twenty-four
Cardinals, the Spanish Ambassador, and the
Pope's nephews came to pay her their respects.
293
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Azzolino had already met her at Narni ;and
her actual entry through the Porta del Popolo
was made in the Pope's own carriage, followed
by a train of fifty other carriages, each drawn
by six horses, saluted by salvoes from the
Papal artillery, and attended by light horsemen
and Swiss Guards. She was driven to the
Quirinal, where the Pope accorded her an
audience which lasted for more than an
hour.
She had not settled the business which she
—
had started out to settle, far from that. She
had accomplished nothing for the Church, and
very little for herself. Her indebtedness to
Texeira had increased and many years were
;

still to pass before she would be able to

make both ends meet. Swedish wars were
to continue to interfere with the regularity of
Swedish remittances. Many messengers were
to be dispatched to Sweden to check or expedite
the operations of her agents, and to one of her
agents she was to write pathetically

" I do wish you would either send me some

money, or teach me how to live without it.
Nobody pays me, but I find that everybody
expects to be paid."

In a sense, therefore, Christina was still to

remain for many years a Queen a la recherche de
la piece de cent sous, albeit now pursuing the
coin by proxy. The pain of financial straits,
294
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
however, —provided
—
there be no actual
that
destitution, upon the importance
depends
which one attaches to them and now, though
;

the financial facts were pretty much what they

had been for many years, Christina's sense of
perspective and proportion was altered. She
realised, that is to say, what were the things
that mattered, —realisednot only the
that
Kingdom of Heaven, but also the kingdom of
art, literature, and culture is within us. On
her return, after her long absence, to Rome,
she may be said to have taken definite posses-
sion of those kingdoms.
Perhaps she did not take possession of them
quite at once ; certainly she did not retain
possession of them quite without intermission.
Her candidature for the throne of Poland had
to fail before she was really free to enter into
the enjoyment of any immaterial throne ; and
it was no doubt beneficial to her peace of mind
that, thanks to the Pope's diplomatic reluctance
to commit himself to any cause which was not
obviously the winning one, it failed so quietly
as to give no grounds for derision at the Courts
of Europe. The
failure left her free from a
which she had never really wanted,
responsibility
and free also from any temptation to pretend
that she had really wanted it. We need not
suspect the sincerity of the congratulations
which she offered to her successful rival, or of
the comment which we find her addressing to
the Comte de Saint-Pol
295
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
"Had governed the decision, the
justice
crown would indubitably have gone to the
Prince de Conde, who, of all the candidates,
was the most worthy of it. Be that as it may,
however, his worth and his glory may well
console him for the injustice which Fortune
has done him."

Nor can be said that Christina, having

it

obtained repose and leisure, and relief from

acute pecuniary worry, altogether ceased to care
for anything else. It would no longer, indeed,
have been true to say of her that she had only
relaxed her hold on the affairs of Sweden in
order to take charge of the affairs of the universe;

but she was still of too restless a disposition

consistently to take the line that the affairs
of the universe were no concern of hers. Just
as culture was never for her solely a m.atter of
self-realisation, so religion, even when she drew
nearest to Quietism and Mysticism, was never
solely a matter of attention to the admonitions
of the " inward witness," or of the secret com-
munion of the soul with God. The Old Adam
(or the Old Eve) was not dead in her, though
it had fallen asleep. Now and again it awoke
with a start, and flashed out a spiteful sarcasm.
Bishop Burnet has recalled one of these flashes,
in the days of her extreme old age

" The Church " (she said to him sardonic-

ally) " must certainly be governed by the
296
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Holy Spirit, for since I have been at Rome I
have seen four Popes, and I swear not one of
them had common sense."

Christina, in short, could still quarrel, and

could still intrigue and she
; found it
still

necessary, from time to time, to defend herself.

That terrible Monaldeschi affair still haunted
her: her enemies never missed a chance of
bringing it up against her, — only to find her
hard and unrepentant. She was charged with
it in the course of the Polish election, and had

to justify it, even when protesting that she

scorned to do so

" The man " then repeated) " forced

(she
my hands, and practically compelled me to
have him put to death, by the blackest treachery
that a servant can display towards a master.
I did not order his execution until I had con-
victed him of crime from letters in his own
hand-writing ... in the presence of the Prior
of Fontainebleau, who heard him confess his
guilt. He knows that I caused all the sacra-
ments he could receive to be administered to
"
him before he was executed."

The date of that defence is no less than eleven

years posterior to the crime. There is more
than a suggestion in it of offended ghosts paying
reproachful visits in the silent w^atches of the
night ; of blood-stains often washed out, and as
297
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
often reappearing. Now, as before, the infor-
mation which would have made it possible to
judge the case is stubbornly withheld. We see
only the struggle between pride and the pricks
of conscience, and Christina keeping her secret
while she drees her weird.
But that, after only an intermitt-
all, is

ent, passing spectacle. Indubitably there were

moments when Christina's case was like that
of Lady Macbeth but time, nevertheless, was
;

scattering the poppies, though it did not scatter

them with a sufficiently lavish hand. The Pope
and the Cardinals, with whom Christina lived
on such excellent terms, evoked no awkward
memories. They knew no more of the precise
facts than we know very possibly they knew
;

less. Consequently they could take what view

they chose and they naturally took the kindest
;

possible view of the proceedings of a distinguished

—
convert of their "set," influenced, to some ex-
tent, it may be, by their view of the obligations
of " good form."
Perhaps, when all is said, we had better
imitate them. The visits of the offended ghosts
were rare and became rarer and the note of
;

the twenty years or so of Christina's life which

have still to be surveyed is furnished neither
by the echoes of an uneasy past, nor by the
excitements of contemporary events. Those ex-
citements, though they may claim a little space,
only provide the background of the picture.
Its actual subject is the final garnering of the
298
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
fruits of the great renunciation made so many
years before. One might put it vulgarly and
say that Christina at last threw care to the
winds and tried to enjoy herself but vulgar
;

summaries mislead. A truer way of putting it

will be to say that she gave herself to the realisa-
tion of those aims which she had always meant
to pursue, though restlessness, ambition, and the
lack of pence had too long diverted her from
the pursuit. At last, that is, she would really
live her own life in her own way, realising and
perfecting herself with the help of culture and
religion.
Culture came was natural during the
first, as
pontificate of a Pope who was
also an opera
librettist, —
a pontificate which has been called,
in consequence of its splendour, the Golden Age
of Rome

" Every day " (writes Arckenholtz in his

description of the Papal Court) "there was
some fresh spectacle to be witnessed. One
day it was the reception of an Ambassador ;

another day, the promotion of a Cardinal

always some entertainment or other. The morn-
ing was devoted to worship and public affairs ;

—
but as soon as the dinner a very sumptuous
—
repast was over, the papal party repaired to
the theatre or the opera-house, or listened to a
serenade by an excellent band, diversified by part
songs and symphonies. . . .

" The Pope, who was generous and bene-

299
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
volent, inspired hisnephews with these quahties.
There was no suggestion of miserhness about
those noble lords, as had been the case during
some previous pontificates on the contrary,
;

they all lived beyond their means. The

. . .

ladies wore French gowns, or attired them-

selves as Amazons. Each of them tried to dress
better than all the others, with the result that
there was as much exaggerated luxury at Rome
as at any of the Courts of Europe. . . .

" Public comedies were, at this time, intro-

duced at Rome during the Carnival. A large
box of extraordinary magnificence was con-
structed at the theatre for the Queen. It held
fifteen or sixteen persons, and there were always
ten or a dozen Cardinals there, keeping Her
Majesty company and paying her compliments."

The only obstacle to her complete content-

ment was her pride, which she had not yet quite
conquered. It was complained that she treated
members of the aristocracy, other than Cardinals,
"as if they were her domestic servants " and ;

she herself complained because Princess Colonna

was permitted to have a box opposite to her own
at an open-air entertainment —
whereto His Holi-
ness returned the soft but sarcastic answer, that
as the common people were admitted to the
spectacles, he did not see any reason why the
nobility should be excluded from them.
That, however, though Arckenholtz makes
much of it, was probably no more than a passing
300
(/ttcr/i (j/i/fit/rntf
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
fit of temper. In any case, it was only in the
presence of the pride of birth that Christina
herself was haughty. Where there could be
no question of the pride of birth, and no
opposition to her views of etiquette, as in the
case of the artists and themen of letters, she
was charming and could be humble. She was,
in effect, the founder of the so-called Arcadian
Academy, though it was not formally constituted
until after her death. Its nucleus was a literary
society which met at her palace " under the
spiritual protection of Jesus Christ." There
were fourteen members, each of whom took
the name of an Arcadian shepherd and they ;

read each other their compositions, and dis-

cussed ethics, aesthetics, and literature. " Noble
sentiments," even without noble birth, sufficed
to qualify for membership women were only
;

eligible on condition that they " tried to write

poetry " and both mutual admiration and eulogy
;

of Christina were formally forbidden.

It is such reachings out after the simple,
but cultivated, life, that w^e see Christina as
she would have wished posterity to see her ;

while her manner of bestowing benefits upon

the need}^ had a delicacy in striking contrast
with the arrogance of her attitude towards those
who appeared to challenge her social status.
To an Archbishop, for instance, who needed
help, she wrote thus

" I am sending you 200 ducats, which is less

301
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
than you deserve and I should hke to give. But
my blushes will avenge you. Say nothing about
it to any one, or I shall be mortally offended."

Of her benefactions to Vincenzo da Filicaia,

Crescimbeni writes thus

" She had his children educated as if " (to

quote her own words) " they were her own sons
but she did not want any one to be told, in order,
as she put it, that she might not be oblige d to
blush at the thought of having done so little for
a man whom she esteemed so highly."

And when Filicaia asked leave to express his

gratitude in a eulogistic ode, she wrote

" Pray do not think that I wanted you to praise

me. Whoever put that idea into your head has
done me a great wrong. You must not waste
your time or your talents on me."

There are many other stories of the same

sort they all show us Christina mellowing in
:

character as well as in wisdom. Even the

Monaldeschi memory troubles her less as she
gets farther away from it and covers it up with
worthier memories. She seems to be getting to
feel that the tragedy happened too long ago to
matter

" How ridiculous " (she is at last able to

302
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
write) " is all this nonsense
about Monaldesclii
All Westphalia may him to have been
believe
innocent if it chooses. The opinion of West-
phalia is a matter of indifference to me."

For she really had other things to think about.

She was sitting with Cassini in his observatory
when he discovered his comet. Her Academy
took up a good deal of her time and interest
so did her library, her art treasures, and her
curios. —
She also wrote a little, chiefly a frag-
ment of autobiography, and some aphorisms ;

and she became more spiritually minded, with

a stronger tendency to mysticism. We will try
to trace her mental and spiritual development,
though without losing sight of the other activities
which still occasionally occupied her, though
they were no longer so important to her as in
the past.

303
 CHAPTER XXVI
—
Death of Clement ix. The Conclave of I669 Intrigues of —
Christina and Azzolino to secure the election of a friend
Their failure — A love letter in the midst of the Conclave
— Election of Cardinal Altieri, who takes the name of
Clement x.

The event which summoned Christina from

first

contemplation to activity was the death of

Clement ix., in the last days of 1669.
There was the usual mystery about his illness,
— ^the usual optimism. It was given out that he
had a cold in the head, and was expected to make
a quick recovery. The fact was that, long a
sufferer from hernia and stone, he had now been
seized with apoplexy. The general belief was
that he died of grief at the news that the Heathen
Turk had taken Crete from Christendom a view —
set forth in a contemporary Latin epigram

" Qui tumulum cernis, discas jacet in urna ^

Clemens ;
pro Creta vertitur in cinerem."

Which is credible enough. The loss of Crete

may have meant as much to Clement ix. as
well
the loss of Calais meant to our own Bloody Mary.
The island was the chief remaining outpost of
1 Correctly copied by the writer. The first Une obviously does
not scan.
304
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Christendom its loss might well be viewed as
;

a sign and a symbol as well as a catastrophe.

Clement, as well as Christina, had dreamed of
uniting the Powers of Christendom in a last
Crusade, to save it. This common aspiration, no
lessthan their common interest in art and letters,
had been a link between them and what to her
;

had been little more than a hobby had become

to him a ruling passion. He had laboured hard,
in the intervals between prayers and dramatic
spectacles, to overcome the reluctance of Christian
potentates to compose their own feuds, in order
to be free to combine against the Ottoman.
He had even begun to succeed. A " sort of "
an expedition had been fitted out in France, and
dispatched to the help of the Venetian defenders
but it had been withdrawn without accom-
plishing its task. The tide of Ottoman conquest
was to roll yet farther before John Sobieski
checked under the walls of Vienna. From
it

April untilOctober 1669, the bells of all

the churches in Rome were tolled nightly in
supplication for divine aid for Crete but ;

towards the end of October it was made known

that Crete had fallen, and the news of the Pope's
illness followed hard on the heels of the an-
nouncement. He rallied, but only to turn his
face to the wall, like Hezekiah, —
to receive
extreme unction, and bid liis friends farewell.
Christina was one of those whom he sent for.
" He bade her farewell," a diplomatist reported
to Louis XIV., " in the most tender manner
u 305
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
imaginable, so that tears were drawn from her
eyes." A week later, the death agony began ;

and then, the Camerlengo having attested the

decease by tapping the dead Pope's forehead with
a silver hammer, and the ring of the fisherman
having been removed from his finger, the bells
tolled again, bidding the people mourn, the corpse
was placed on a bier, and carried through a
lamenting crowd, to lie in state in the Church of
St. Peter. That done, the preparations were
made for the Conclave in which his successor was
to be elected.
That is to say, preparations were made for
locking up the Cardinals, each in a separate cell,
whence they would repair, twice daily, to the
Sixtine Chapel, there to record their votes, as
often as was necessary, until one of the candi-
dates secured an absolute majority of suffrages.
It would be a cold, uncomfortable period, to
which none could look forward with pleasure.
Cardinals accustomed to luxurious palaces,
warmed by blazing logs, would crouch, shivering,
in their cubicles, over charcoal braziers. Car-
dinals who were used to fare sumptuously every
day would have cold broken victuals sent in to
them and the windows of their compartments
;

— —
and also of the entire palace would be walled
up, only the irreducible minimum of light and
air being admitted through tiny chinks. No
visitors might come to see them ; and their
letters would be opened and read by others.
So it had been decided by the wisdom of the
306
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Popes of old, for very cogent reasons. It was
important that the Cardinals should not be made
too comfortable, in order that they might not be
tempted to take too long over the election, to
the detriment of the interests of the Church.^
It was also important that they should be pro-
tected from extraneous influence, in order that
they might arrive at their decision under the sole
guidance of the Holy Spirit. That was the
theory, though theory was often at loggerheads
with practice, and the prayers which the electors
offered for guidance were apt, in spite of all
precautions, to be a mixed incense, sadly con-
taminated by intrigue. It might be, of course,
that the Holy Spirit overruled intrigue, and
brought good out of it but the ways of the
;

electors —
and of the Powers behind the electors
— were invariably devious. It was to be so now.
Character and virtue, of course, counted for
something in the choice of the electors, and were
beginning to count for more in the seventeenth
century than at some previous dates. We hear
of two Cardinals regarded as ineligible one be- —
cause he was notoriously the father of a large
family, the other because he was in the habit of
fuddling himself in taverns. Age, however, was,
on the whole, a more valuable asset to a candidate
than piety, for the older the Pope chosen, the
sooner there would, in all human probability, be
a fresh Conclave and a fresh chance for the
^ The rule was made after an election which had lasted more
than two years.
307
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
rejected. A colourless politician, again, was
regarded as preferable to a partisan ; for the
Spanish faction objected to the partisans of
France, and the French faction objected to the
partisans of Spain. And there were also, of
course, personal considerations. The new Pope,
whoever he might be, would have patronage to
distribute he would be able to make things
;

comfortable for his friends and uncomfortable for

his enemies. Consequently every one concerned,
whether directly or indirectly, with the election
the Powers, and the Ambassadors of the Powers,
as well as the Cardinals themselves wished to —
be able to boast, on the day of the declaration of
the poll, of a share of the " glory " of having
" made " whatever Pope was chosen.
Such was the atmosphere of the election, an —
atmosphere which was anything rather than
spiritual. The problem for every one concerned
was, not merely to secure the election of a friend,
but also to avoid estranging any candidate who
had any serious chance of success. Azzolino was
not one of those who had a serious chance, his —
age was against him, for he was only forty-seven ;

but he was, none the less, materially as well as

spiritually, interested in the result. As a good
—
churchman the creature neither of France nor
of Spain— he desired an independent Pope, who
would hold the scales impartially between those
two Powers. As an individual, he desired a Pope
who would retain him in the office of Secretary
of State. Azzolino, that is to say, proposed to
308
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
help the Church and to help himself at the same
time ;while Christina proposed to help the
Church, and at the same time to help Azzolino.
But not too openly, for that might be fatal to
success. Nobody must be allowed to know what
—
they were doing or, at all events, how they
w^ere doing it. Above all, they must not alarm
the opposition by showing their hands, or naming
their favourite, too soon. In short, like other
conspirators, they must dissemble ; and, if they
could not dissemble without trifling with the
truth, then they must trifle with it, as Christina,
in fact, began to do, in a very artistic manner,
very soon after the See fell vacant. Cardinal
Vidoni was their first choice ; and Christina,
therefore, took care to be overheard saying, as
he passed in a procession :
" Well, he, at any
rate, isn't likely to be our new Pope."
That was the first stroke of craft, symbolical
of many. Another consisted in securing free
communication with Azzolino at a time when
he was supposed to be excluded from all in-
fluences save that of the Holy Spirit. Christina
hired, to that end, a palace within the radius
reserved for ecclesiastical proceedings, so that
her messengers might be able to go to and fro
without being perpetually called upon to show
passes and answer questions. She had an
office fitted up there, for the dispatch of busi-
ness ; and there was a garden from which she
could look up at the window of Azzolino's cell.
The window, of course, was boarded up in com-
309
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
pliance with the regulations but just as stone
;

walls do not make a prison, so boards are no

barriers to sentiment.
The details the intrigues
of —
the person-
alities involved in them —
can no longer matter
to any human being. All that continues to be
interesting after the lapse of time is the manner
and the temper in which they were conducted
— the hypocrisy and humbug, —
the mixture
of worldliness and other worldliness which
-

seems to be inevitable when the possession of

a spiritual office brings temporal advantage.
The note of it all is the conjunction of prayer
with low cunning ; the competitors fighting
for the fisherman's ring asdogs fight for a bone,
— but not so fairly. For dogs, at least, cannot
lie and pretend that they do not want the

bone whereas the Cardinals and their backers

;

were as double-faced as they were combative.

The general idea was that Christina should
pull the wires outside the Conclave while
Azzolino pulled them within that she should
;

drop dark hints, conveying the impression that

he was the Pope-maker, while he increased the
value of his support by withholding it until
the eleventh hour, and then wheeled into line
with Vidoni's open supporters. It was also
important to persuade both France and Spain
that Vidoni was their man, but that they could
not secure his election without Azzolino's help.
To that end, Christina held many mysterious
receptions in her palace, and reported progress
310
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
in many confidential notes, —
some of them, it
is said,smuggled into the Conclave on plates
of broken victuals.
There were love letters, as well as business
letters, among them. Imagine this note drop-
ping into the midst of a conference of cardinals,
communing with each other under divine guid-
ance

" What happy induced you to

influence
give me, once again, the glorious symbols of
my past happiness ? Am I mistaken ? Do
those initials S.M.' no longer mean all that
'

they used to mean ? If I could only make you

understand the delight which the sight of them
gave me, you would adjudge me, in some
degree, worthy of this title which I prefer to
that of Queen of the Universe. But I must
be unworthy of it, since you have deprived me
of it. Do as you think best. My own be-
haviour is such that you will never be able to
doubt, without injustice and terrible cruelty,
that '
S.M.' is due to me."

It is enigmatic ; but the allusion is obviously

to some pet name bestowed upon the Queen in
old times by her Cardinal lover. It is obvious,
too, not only that she had once loved him, but
that she still loved him, whether he still loved
her or not. The expression of the sentiment
may have been out of place at such a holy
time; but it gives the key to her proceedings.
311
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Much as she loved intrigue for its own sake,
she loved her partner in intrigue still better
;

and therefore she intrigued with a whole heart,

ceasing to live her own life in order to live his,
and allowing no scrupulous regard for truth or
honesty to hamper her endeavours. One must
not even say that the greater advantage of
Azzolino was more to her than the greater
glory of the Church,— she loved too well to
draw any subtle distinction between the two
things.
But she intrigued in vain ; and once more
the details do not matter. One may simply
sum them up by saying that Christina and
Azzolino were, as vulgar people say, " too
clever by half." Other people as well as they
were intriguing and these other people intrigued
;

more adroitly. The upshot was that, after the

Conclave had lasted four months and ten days
after Christina had written Azzolino one hundred
and twenty-three letters on the subject all —
the " popable " Cardinals who wanted to be
Pope were set aside, and the choice fell, almost
unanimously, upon an aged Cardinal who pro-
tested that he was unworthy of the honour, wept
at the prospect of its imminence, and implored
his insistent supporters not to vote for him,
but to let him die in peace the octogenarian
:

Cardinal Altieri.
Even after
his election Altieri continued
to protest.His colleagues had to argue a whole
hour with him before he consented to accept
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
the honour, and then practically to force the
tiara on to his head. At last, however, he
yielded, and took the name of Clement x. and
;

when the barriers which protected the Conclave

were struck down, Christina, who had worked so
hard for more than one of his rivals, was the
first to enter and kiss his feet. Perhaps she
was glad that the struggle was over, and that
she was once more free to give herself to art,
literature, and religion.

813
 CHAPTER XXVII
— —
Death of Clement x. Accession of Innocent xi. A reforming
— —
Pope Christina's quarrels with him Her objection to
his sumptuary laws —
Her insistence upon the right of
asylum for law-breakers in the precincts of her palace
The Pope's commentary on her conduct E donna

The accession of Clement x. made little differ-

ence to anybody. It was his Comet's fault, not

his, that Christina was unceremoniously re-
ceived when she first called to pay her respects.
He himself was just a colourless, amiable old
man, chiefly anxious, as he announced, to be
allowed to depart in peace, and neither a
reformer nor an innovator. The loss of Crete
to Christendom did not worry him, nothing —
worried him ; in particular hap-
and nothing
pened until, in 1676, he slept with his fathers,
and was succeeded by Cardinal Odescalchi, who
reigned as Innocent xi.
But then it was as if King Log had been
succeeded by King Stork, or as if a jolly
Prince of Wales had put away jollity, and
become a strenuous King whose little finger
was thicker than his father's loins. Cardinal
Odescalchi had danced assiduous attendance
on Christina in her box at the opera but ;

314
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Innocent xi. was a reforming Pope, bent upon
sweeping out Augean stables and enacting
sumptuary laws, without regard for the feelings
of those whom they inconvenienced. Passages
of arms between him and Christina were
inevitable and they had several, first about
; —
small matters, and afterwards about great
ones. Culture was much to Christina, and so
was but the getting of her own
religion ;

way was more than either. Only on condition

that she got her own way could she behave
quite like a Christian philosopher.
First of all, the sumptuary laws caused trouble.
Innocent required some alterations which Chris-
tina did not like in the construction of her royal
box; he objected to the appearance of actresses,
introduced by her, on the public stage he also ;

said his ecclesiastical say on the extravagance of

feminine apparel. But that is a path full of
pitfalls for ecclesiastical reformers ; and Chris-
tina had sufficient sense of humour to " guy " the
exhortations of her Father in God, in the very
act of obeying them. When
he called upon her,
she made the feminine members of her household
—
parade before him all of them attired as the most
outrageous " frumps." The Roman world then
talked of " monkey tricks " and Innocent xi.
;

was not too pious a man to lie low, saying

nothing, but awaiting his chance of " getting,"
as vulgar people say, " a little of his own back
again."
That chance came with the revival of Chris-
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
tina's zeal for the discomfiture of theHeathen
Turk, and her appeal to the Pope to help the
good cause with a subsidy. He promised to do
so, and did so and Christina, magnanimously
;

deciding that bygones might now be bygones,

overwhelmed him with eloquent applause. But
then, when the last echoes of the panegyric had
died away, she learnt that His Holiness had
suppressed her own pension, and devoted it to
the noble purpose. Truly it was a stroke worthy
of the Pope of whom Bishop Burnet, then
travelling in Italy, wrote that "he hath a par-
ticular stiffness of temper, with a great slowness
of understanding, and an insatiable desire of
heaping up wealth." Christina pretended to be
pleased ; but her manner of expressing her
pleasure shows that she was furiously angry.
The news, she told Azzolino, was " most
welcome " ;she begged him to do her the justice
of believing her when she said so. God was her
witness that she spoke the truth

" The acceptance " (she continued ) " of the

twelve thousand crowns which the Pope gave me
was the one blot on my life. I only accepted it
as a mortification inflicted by the hand of God
in order to humiliate my pride. His gracious
goodness in taking it away from me in cir-
cumstances of such glory proves that I have
found favour in His eyes. This is His reward
for the poor services which He has permitted me
to render Him. The favour is worth more to me
316
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
than a thousand kingdoms ; and I pray to God
to preserve me from the vanity which I might
naturally feel in it. Would that a hundred
thousand crowns a month could be taken from me,
so that my merit in rejoicing might be greater
"
!

E donna : the famous criticism is as well

justified by that outburst as by any other and
;

Christina's final period may, perhaps, be best

described as one of culture and Quietism
diversified by explosions. At any rate, one's
attempts to dwell upon the Quietism are con-
tinually disturbed by the noise of the exjDlosions ;

and not all of the explosions are creditable to

her. One has to picture her " in opposition,"
convinced that the function of an Opposition
—
was to oppose, and therefore always at least
—
when she awoke from her Quietism against the
Pope's Government, whether that Government
was right or wrong and, as the reign of Innocent
;

XI. was known as the Age of Iron — in contrast to

the Age of Gold under Clement x.— -the oppor-
tunities of conflict were frequent.
One of Christina's ruling passions blazed up
over the question whether Del Monte, her Master
of the Horse, should be addressed as '' Ex-
cellency." Over that question she fought the
—
Ambassadors as well as the Sacred College, but
fought them unsuccessfully in spite of the help
she got from Azzolino's persuasive tongue ; and
—
her defeat in that battle of etiquette a defeat
—
which amounted to a snub may have been one
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of the influences which hardened her heart. It
was hardened, at all events, not only against the

Pope's zeal for persecution, but also against his

zeal for the reform of the Roman administration.
Not only did she express herself " like a Fury "
over the imprisonment of her friend, the Quietist
Molinos not only did she try in vain to save the
;

lives of heretics condemned to death she also

;

fought the Pope over her claim to afford sanctuary

to malefactors in her palace and its precincts.
That privilege was one which she shared with
the Ambassadors of the Powers. It had never
been formally accorded to her ; but she had
assumed it, and it may be said to have been hers
by prescription. The trouble lay, not so much
in the privilege itself, as in the extensive ap-
plication given to it. was reasonable enough
It
that the residence of an Ambassador should be
regarded as extra-territorial, and that his suite
should be immune from arrest but the extension
;

of the privilege to the precincts, and to any one

who chose to take refuge within them, was
another matter. That meant a Rome bristling
with Alsatias which might serve as refuges and
bases of operations the criminal classes.
for
Innocent xi., as a reforming Pope, resolved to
put an end to the abuse, and to restrict the right
of sanctuary to the palaces and to the members
of the ambassadorial households.
That, again, was reasonable : there was no
reason why both the Ambassadors and Christina
should not agree. Christina, in fact, began by
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 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
agreeing with a characteristic flourish of trum-
pets. The Pope's proposal, she wrote, struck
her as " very just," and she willingly made him
a present of a privilege, never abused, freely
granted to her by liis predecessors, reserving to
herself only the right to protect her personal
attendants ;and she went on in the fine style of
one who likes to perform a magnanimous act
magnanimously

" I confess that I am only offering to cede a

right which already appertains to Your Holiness.
But, then, we can offer God Himself nothing but
what He has given us and God not only accepts
;

such offerings, but rewards them, in His infinite

goodness, with immeasurable and eternal benefits.
For my own part, I ask nothing from Your
Holiness, but only beg Your Holiness to accept
the offering of an example which perhaps will not
be without its utility to the Holy See."

That meant, of course, that Christina desired

the credit of giving a " lead " to the Ambassadors ;

and, if the Ambassadors had followed her lead,

all would have gone well. Unfortunately,
though some of them were willing to follow it,
the Ambassador of the King of France was too
proud to do so, saying haughtily that he was
accustomed to set precedents, not to be guided
by them. The Pope then excommunicated him
and he did not seem to mind. And his refusal
made, of course, a difference to Christina.
319
 COUPT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
It made the more difference to her because the
Pope, instead of graciously Saluting her as a
model daughter of the Church, accepted her
SmTcnder of her privileges as a matter of course,
and proceeded, without any excess of ceremony,
to take her at her word. Nothing more was
needed to make her change her mind, with-
out even giving notice of her intention to change
it, and to complain of
" barbarous treatment "
when the Papal police began to violate the right
of asylum which she had abandoned. Hence a
row, —for the vulgar word
is the most applicable :

we will summarise the story.

There was a certain wine and spirit merchant
who was " wanted " by the police. They caught
him in a church but he escaped from them and
;

ran into the precincts of Christina's palace,

hoping to take sanctuary in the coach-house.
Finding the coach-house door fastened, he
clung to the padlock but the police threw
;

a rope round neck and pulled it.

his He had
to let go in order to avoid being strangled ;

and his shouts brought a crowd of sympa-

thisers, who also filled the air with indignant
roarings

" How barbarous ! What tyranny ! What

"
disrespect to God and to the Queen !

It happened on Sunday, during

Easter
church time. coming
Christina, out of church,
heard what had been done. She listened to the
820
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
story, meditated in silence for a few minutes,
and then exploded

*'
No " (she said). " I
might hush this
matter up, but I shall not. The Pope is
treating me too badly and I shall take this
;

opportunity of showing him that he is mis-

taken if he expects me to put up with such
treatment."

Whereupon she sent some of her guards

after the police agents to release the prisoner.
The accustomed to respect royal
police agents,
Alsatias, were so frightened at what they had
done, that they not only let the man go, but
begged, on their knees, that their own lives
might be spared. The Roman populace ap-
plauded, and even the Cardinal-Governor took
Christina's part. An official sent to see her
on the subject brought back an unsatisfactory
reply, saying that Christina had " spoken to him
as a Queen," telling him that what had been
done had been done by her orders, that she
took the full responsibility for it, and was
quite prepared to do it again under the same
provocation.
It was the Pope's turn. He took criminal
proceedings against the guards who had inter-
fered with his police, had them condemned in
absence, and their condemnations and sentences
placarded on the walls of Rome. Whereupon
Christina, who was sheltering them in her palace
X 321
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
from the execution of the judgment, wrote a
furious letter to the President of the Tribunal

" So you doing justice

call this You dis-
!

honour yourselves and your master. I am sorry

for you, and I shall be still more sorry for you
when you are a Cardinal. Meanwhile I promise
you that those whom you have condemned shall
not, by God's grace, die yet awhile, and, if they
do die any but a natural death, they shall not die
alone."

One can almost hear the stamxp of the foot

which must have accompanied that explosion ;

one can easily picture the domestic demonstra-

tion which ensued, —
the members of Christina's
household assembled and harangued. She was
charged, she told them, of fomenting sedition
against the Pope, wiiereas, as they knew, nothing
was farther from her thoughts. Gladly would
—
she protect them if she could, no fears for
herself should hinder her from doing so but she;

was a poor weak woman, persecuted by a fierce

despotic man. For their own sakes, they had
better leave her, —
she proposed to dismiss them
for their good.
Wliereupon, of course, they took up their
cue, and played their own proper parts in the
demonstration, falling upon their knees with
streaming eyes, and protesting, with choking
voices, that they would never desert their
mistress, but begged leave to continue to live
322
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
in her service, and, need were, to die in it, de-
if

fending her with the last drop of blood in their

veins. Whereto she assented, declaring that
she feared but feared nothing else in
God,
the world, and would rather die a thousand
deaths than submit to the indignities put upon
her. And then, by way of showing that she
meant what she said, she walked abroad, taking
with her those members of her suite whom the
—
Pope had presumed to condemn, a fine act of
bravado which the Roman populace did not
fail to applaud.
So the quarrel raged and presently, as was
;

proper in a quarrel between high potentates,

there was a formal exchange of diplomatic notes,
embodying qualified apologies and retractations.
Christina said that she was sorry if she had unin-
tentionally given offence, but that she expected
that the Pope, while pardoning her, would give
strict orders that she should be treated more
respectfully in the future, as she would rather die
than submit to such affronts. Innocent xi. replied
that he was much impressed by this spectacle
of edifying humility on the part of a person
of exalted station, and that he would take care
that Christina was treated with all the respect
that was due to her but he added that, as a
;

sovereign Prince, he had the right to punish

crime, whoever the criminal might be, and that
he expected the Queen herself to punish any
members of her suite who misbehaved, and dismiss
them if they persisted in their misbehaviour.
323
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
was his way of intimating that, while he
It
insisted on his rights in principle, he would let
this particular assertion of them lapse. Christina
still desired a more complete satisfaction, and

the last word in the controversy but she got

;

neither, and Innocent xi.'s final attitude towards

her reminds one of that of a chivalrous Home
Secretary towards a militant suffrage-seeker
whose bombs do not go off. She made a further
demonstration, paying a defiant visit to the
Jesuit Church, once more attended by the
offenders whom she had challenged the Pope to
arrest if he cared first to pass over her dead body.
Instead of attempting to pass over her dead body,
—
he sent her a present, several baskets of the
most delicate fruits in season. And then occurred
the famous exchange of pleasantries

" The Pope needn't think," said Christina,

" that his presents are going to lull my suspicions.
On the contrary, I shall be more on my guard
than ever."

" E —
donna she is a woman, and she behaves
as such," was the rejoinder of Innocent xi. ;

and it is said to have caused Christina more

annoyance than any of his previous acts or
utterances.
Nor was even that the last of Christina's
tussles with her spiritual
father. The vexed
question of the right of asylum came up again,
a little later, in connection with the case of a
324
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
lady who had escaped from a nunnery and be-
sought Christina to shelter her and the Pope
;

once more raged furiously, but raged in vain.

One does not know the rights of the case but, ;

even without knowing them, one is disposed to

take Christina's side. The "doubtful reputa-
tion " of the lady, whom Christina promoted to
be her chambermaid, is neither here nor there ;

for the use of convents as places of penal detention

is an obnoxious ecclesiastical abuse. There had
once been a question, in the reign of Alexander
VII., of sending Christina herself to a convent

and the memory of that menace may now have

fortified her obstinacy. In any case, it is
difficult to withhold sympathy from her bold
statement that, if the Cardinal who demanded
the surrender of the fugitive had not been a
personal friend, she would have had him thrown
out of the window.
But that is our last story of the disturbing
storms. Most likely they fill a space in her
biographies which is out of all proportion to
their importance. They furnish incident ; and
incident naturally looms larger in narrative
than the mere spiritual progress of the inner life.

Nevertheless it is true that the greatest events

—
take place in the intellect, and in the heart
and it is to the ultimate mellowing of Christina's
character,and her gradual realisation of the pro-
founder truths of her religion, that our last
chapters must be devoted.

325
 CHAPTER XXVIII
Christina's last years— Bishop Burnet's description of her— Her
Aphorisms — Platitudes commingled them with
in in-
dividual thoughts — Aphorisms about love — And about
religion — Do the Aphorisms convey the truth concerning
her affection for Azzolino ?

Christina, in these latter years of her life, was

" very small, fat, and round, with a double chin,
and a laughing air, and very obliging manners."
That is the excellent Bishop Burnet's descrip-
tion ;and he fills in the background of his
portrait thus

" At the Queen of Sweden's one learns all the

news relating to Germany or the North. This
Princess, who will always reign among those who
are endowed with wit and learning, keeps up in
her antechamber the finest Court of strangers in
Rome. The civility and great diversity of matters
furnished by her conversation makes her among
all the rare sights of Rome the rarest, not to say

among all the antiquities, which is the term she

made use of in doing me the honour to speak to
me."

She, further, did Burnet the honour of speak-

ing to him in epigrams. It was to him that she
326
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
addressed the gibe which discovered in the
divine governance of the Church the excuse for
raihng at its earthly governors. It has been
given already, but it may be given again

" The Church must certainly be governed by

the Holy Spirit, for since I have been at Rome
I have seen four Popes, and I swear not one of
them had common sense."

Thus including in a common condemnation the

Popes who had taken her seriously because she
was a Queen, and the Pope who had refused to
take her seriously because she was a woman and
behaved as such.
But Burnet's picture, of course, was only of
externals. He saw a merry woman who was also
wise ;a wise woman who was also merry. He
saw, that is to say, what he was allowed to see ;

and it may even be that he saw a time-honoured

institution rather than a breathing and pal-
pitating individual. He certainly did not try
to solve the riddle of Christina's personality ;

and he probably did not perceive that there was

any riddle to be solved. But there was a riddle,
and perhaps still is one a riddle which would
:

be bafflingly insoluble if one insisted that the

solution must smooth out all the inconsistencies
and find a formula to reconcile
them.
E donna was the Pope's formula. Miss
Taylor, in her interesting monograph, seems dis-
posed to adopt it. But it will not do. To say
327
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of Christina that she was a woman and behaved
as such may, indeed, help us over some of the
as it has been made to do in the course of
stiles,

thisbiography but it does not help us over all

;

of them. As well might one try to sum up

Napoleon by saying " He was a man so what
: —
else could you expect ? " Napoleon is inter-
esting, not because he resembled other men,
but because he differed from them. Christina,
similarly, is interesting, not as a representative,
but an unrepresentative woman, one of
as —
whom could be said, in general, though not
it

always in particular, that " none but herself

could be her parallel."
One may say, if one likes, that Christina was
a true woman in stamping her foot at the Pope,
and defying him, with the full assurance that he
would be too chivalrous to use the full measure
of his strength against her. One may also say
that she was a true woman in first tossing away
her crown and then trying to pick it up again,
and in insisting with an infuriated obstinacy
upon the social prerogatives of her royal rank
had relieved herself of its responsibilities.
after she
But one must not conclude that to say that is to
say all. It stillremains impossible to pick a
woman at random from among one's acquaint-
ances — or even a woman who appears to one to
be particularly womanly —or particularlyclever,
or particularly wayward —and picture her in
Christina's place, doing exactly what Christina
did. Christina's individuality forbids.
328
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Some, perhaps, instead of individuality, would
say genius but that is an appreciation not to be
;

too lightly risked. The temperament of genius

Christina no doubt possessed but if she had had
;

the genius itself, as well as the temperament,

she would either have succeeded in life, or at
least have left some memorable monument of her
failure. As a matter of fact, she failed in life,

largely through never knowing exactly what it

was that she wanted and the literary memorials
;

of her disappointments in the endeavour to find

happiness by living her own life in her own way
lack the stamp which assures the title to im-
mortality. Her Autobiography is not one of the
world's great Autobiographies. Her Sentiments
— or Aphorisms —are not to be compared to cite —
another royal author —with the Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius.
Yet it is to those Aphorisms —
put on paper
at Rome during the later years of her life
that one inevitably turns to ascertain what she
herself considered that she had made of her
life, and what was her conclusion of the whole

matter after experience had taught her all that

it had to teach. They are the Aphorisms, be
it remembered, of a woman brought up in cir-

cumstances analogous to those of a brilliant

Girton girl whose home was in a remote provincial
and Philistine centre a woman who, esteeming
;

culture above all things, had sacrificed a king-

dom for its sake a neurotic woman who liad
;

passed through many nerve-storms, sighing for

329
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
peace, but too often seeking it where it was not
to be found, because she sighed for notoriety
as well as peace a woman who had loved a
;

Cardinal, and had always professed the belief

though she had by no means always acted on
—
it that religion was, after all, the only thing
that mattered. Truly, therefore, when she
took her pen in hand, and sat down to put
herself and her inmost soul into a book, she had
a theme well worthy of genius. What did she
make of it ?

She made very little of it ; and that for

reasons which it is not very difficult to penetrate.
That she was an amateur does not matter :

Marcus Aurelius was also an amateur. So was

Bunyan so was William Law so was Saint
; ;

Augustine. For intimate writing, spiritual ex-

perience counts for a vast deal more than the
experience gained by the composing of many
books. To those who have the other gifts,
the gift of style is often added, as if by divine
endowment. But there is also needed either
excess of a total
self-consciousness, or else
lack of it concentration and mental detach-
;

ment. It was on that side that Christina was

defective. Her life had, indeed, been an
agitated pilgrimage towards a Land of Beulah
and there were evidently moments when she
was fully persuaded that she had reached her
destination, and found peace and content.
But she had not. The habits of agitation
and quarrelsome excitement still clung to her
330
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
and the struggle with them persisted almost
to the last. Sometimes she worsted them
but sometimes they worsted her. If her home
was in the Land of Beulah, she was rather too
fond of leaving home. We have seen her
issuing from her spiritual seclusion in order
to stand upon her dignity, and in order to
wrangle with the Pope. She also tried to
double the incompatible parts of religious
mystic and fashionable hostess and one can
;

see the result of the consequent spiritual con-

fusion in her writings, as well as in her actions,
— in her formal Aphorisms, as well as in her
informal correspondence. Alike of the Aphor-
isms and of the Letters one can make anything,
according to the passages one chooses to select.
The Aphorisms begin as a colourless mani-
festo of ordinary orthodoxy. Just like any
Jesuit theologian, Christina deduces the entire
body of Catholic doctrine from the intuitive
initial proposition that " there is, beyond ques-
tion,a God who is the unique source and the
ultimate end of all things." The infallibility
of the Pope who had no " common sense," and
whom she was always defying because he was
disrespectful and treated her demonstrations
as tantrums, seem to her to follow inevitably
from that comprehensive premiss. " One is
rightly amazed," she says, " to find persons
professing and calling themselves Christians
who have their doubts about this visible Head
of the Church." The only possible comment
331
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
is : Perhaps ; but why trouble to say so, seeing
that the proposition is common to all the
Catholic manuals ? It is not exactly a plati-
tude ; butprepares us for platitudes to follow.
it

And platitudes do follow and follow quickly —

" Nothing that is not honourable is useful."

" It is better to deserve good fortune than to

possess it."

" I have the greatest admiration for the

character of Alcibiades."

" Even if God did not reward virtue, one

ought to practise it for its own sake."

" A prince should love the brave, but should

detest the boastful and the brutal."

" There is no rule without its exception

our judgment should guide us in doubtful cases."

" Civility and kindness are becoming even to

the great."

" Nothing is more pernicious than idleness."

" Economy is necessary ; but it should be

noble and not sordid."

And so forth, and so forth. Again and

again, on page after page, we find Christina
332
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
rediscovering the obvious. Most likely it is a
weakness for which her royal rank and the
compliments of her Court of flatterers account.
In every mind there is dross commingled with
the gold ; and those who have only courtiers
for critics are the least to be trusted to separate
the alloy from the precious metal. That is
why kings and queens, even when clever, as
they very often are, tend to think that, because
truisms are true, therefore to be platitudinous
is to be profound, and that even the headings

of the copy-book need to be sanctioned by their

approbation. Christina evidently thought so ;

and one would hardly have been surprised if

one had found among her Aphorisms the " awful
and inexorable saying " that there are mile-
stones on the Dover Road.
Yet she is clearly superior to her platitudes
even when she utters them. they are in-
If

cluded in her stock of wisdom, they do not

constitute the whole of it. If she does not
know better, atany rate she knows more and
;

the personal note is never quite drowned by the

commonplaces. She has her individual views, for

instance, on the subject of love and marriage

" Every woman who wants to enjoy herself

needs a husband ; she cannot do without one."

" Women only marry in order to acquire

greater liberty. They would rather have aged
husbands than none at all."
333
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" One needs more cournge to expose oneself
to the evils of marriage than to those of war.
I marvel at the intrepidity of those who marry ;

but this terrible contract is currently entered

into without consideration of its importance or
of the engagements to which it commits one."

" Socrates said :

'
Whether you marry or do
not marry, you will regret it.' For my own part,
I believe that any man who marries will infallibly
regret it ; but I do not see why any one should
regret having remained single. Experience makes
me a judge of that."

" I have the highest respect for those who are

chaste through virtue but those who are chaste
;

only because their temperaments are cold are

never good for anything."

The virtues of which one writes that one

" admires " them are usually the virtues which
one does not consistently practise. Perhaps,
therefore, one may infer something from this
last sentiment as to the practice of the Queen
who indubitably loved Cardinal Azzolino. Per-
haps one can infer it the more surely because
there are traces of a jealousy subsisting between
Christina and a certain Princess whom the
Cardinal had loved before he met her. Whether,
on the other hand, she would have changed her
mind about marriage if it had been permissible
for Cardinals to marry is more than one may^dare
334
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
to guess. It any rate, clear that her
is, at
hostiUty to marriage was equalled by her enthusi-
asm for love, and that, though she thought of
love mainly as a communion of souls, she also
understood and appreciated its more passionate
aspects

" Sensual enjoyment is not necessary to the

existence of love but it is almost an essential
;

to one's perfect happiness."

" Love is possible without possession ; but

complete happiness is not."

" When
the hope of sensual enjoyment has
to be abandoned, one suffers terribly but still ;

one continues to love."

There again, of course, one is tempted to

draw inferences. The utterances are not those
of a woman without " temperament " but ;

they are the utterances of a woman to whom

her temperament was by no means everything.
What Christina has written is what one would

have expected her to write if one knew for certain

that Azzolino's original sensual passion for her
had, at some stage of their relations, been trans-
formed into a purely spiritual passion, and that —
a little before she wished it. We have already
seen letters, written during her long absence
from Rome, which pointed to the same con-
clusion. It is the conclusion, therefore, to which
335
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
all the ascertainable probabilities agree in
pointing.
But Christina's conception of love, though
it had nothing to do with marriage, was a high
one. Disappointment did not tempt her to be
untrue and spiritual love became more and
;

more satisfying to her

" The unique purpose of love is to love and

to be loved. It makes no other claim."

" Love embellishes the beloved object, and

makes it more and more worthy of love with
every passing hour but the love of those who
;

do not know how to love is madly importunate."

" Fidelity in loveis not so much a merit

as a necessity. the touchstone which dis-

It is

tinguishes the true love from the false."

" True love is chaste. Nothing pleases it,

and nothing moves it, except the beloved object."

" Absence does not destroy true love and ;

time, which destroys everything else, has no

power over it."

And love, in Christina's view, is not only a

kind of religion, but also a part of religion, or,
at least, a stepping-stone thereto

" When a heart is capable of loving, it is

336
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
impossible that it should not, sooner or later,
come to love God, who alone is capable of bring-
ing all its desires to fulfilment."

It is difficult to doubt that these scattered

short sentences are, indeed, the veiled confession
of the truth, and that those who read between
the lines can really read the principal secret of
Christina's life.

Undoubtedly she began life with that vague

—
dread of marriage and of passions which might
be more ardent than her ow^n which is not —
uncommon among intellectual women. When
she threw away her crown, in order to be free
to live her own life, it was mainly a life of in-
tellectual vanity which she proposed to lead.
Though had something to do with her
religion
decision, she was hardly to be called religious.
But she w^as human, and became more human
as the years passed over her head and the ;

living of her own according to her own

life,

programme, was more difficult than she had

expected it to be. She sighed for the common
lot, —
and love was a part of it. She found love,
and found that it was the only thing that mattered
except religion. It did not interfere with religion,
but, on the contrary, made her feel more religious
than she would have felt without it.
It would be easy enough to be censorious or
cynical easy to say that this w^as a queer out-
:

come an illegitimate passion for a worldly

of
Prince of the Churcli, who had sworn vows of
Y 337
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
chastity and continually violated them. But
queer things happen, alike to lovers and to the
religious ; and it would be just as reasonable to
quote :
" The wind bloweth where it listeth,"
and " God moves in a mysterious way." The
fact is clear that love and religion did, in
Christina's case, go hand in hand ; and that
though her love was for a Cardinal who was sup-
posed to be a celibate, and her religion was com-
patible with the frequent scolding of the Pope.

338
 CHAPTER XXIX
—
More Aphorisms The Hght which they throw on Christina's
Hfe — —
Her mysticism Her indifference to death Extracts —
from her later correspondence —
Her last illness Her —
reconciliation with the Pope, and her death

We have seen how Christina, in her old age,

defined her attitude towards love we must see,;

in conclusion, how she defined her attitude to-

wards religion. Sometimes, as we have already
seen, she regarded the two things as two modes
of the same activity, —or of the former as the
surest stepping-stone on which a woman could
rise to But not always, in this, as
the latter. —
in other matters, she was apt to be inconsistent,
and alternately conventional and unconventional.
Just as her worldly wisdom is, at its lowest, on a
levelwith the proverbial philosophy of Martin
Farquhar Tupper, so her spiritual ecstasies are,
at their lowest, determined by the rules laid
down in the stock manuals of faith and religion.
She can write like a conventional sinner, and also
like a conventional saint

"The passions are the salt of life. One is

only happy or unhappy in proportion as one does

them violence."
389
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
That is in the tone of the tired cynic, dis-
and disabused.
illusioned But we turn a page
or two, and then we read

" The goodness and the felicity of God are the

justest and worthiest subjects of our joy and
consolation. If God had only created us as
brands to be burned eternally in hell, He would
none the less deserve our love and adoration."

The contrast is as glaring as if we set a senti-

ment by Byron side by side with a sentiment by
Legh Richmond or Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
The sentiments represent the two alternating
moods of the woman who had aspired to reach
the Land of Beulah, and had reached it, but was
continually popping in and out instead of staying
there. There are also sentiments which illustrate
the transition from the one mood to the other

"To be completely happy in this world and

in the next, we must dispense with everything
except God.
" Nothing can fix the affections of our hearts :

it is only in God that they find peace."

That is the goal ; and then we get an in-

dication of the progress towards the goal

" There are some hearts so fortunately born

and so happy that they have never set their
affection on anything but God ; there are others
340
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
which only arrive at the love of God after every-
thing else has disgusted them. The former are
enviable ; the latter are less fortunate. But it

is better to love God late than never."

But it would seem, in spite of the incon-

sistencies, that there was progress, and that
Christina's hopesand thoughts were gradually
and less on life, and more and more on
fixed less
death. There are indications, indeed, that the
Monaldeschi horror still haunted her almost to
the last that she still remembered it, long after
:

others had ceased to remind her of it that, ;

though she continued to justify her action in

public with a brazen face, the verdict finally
delivered by the tribunal of her own conscience
was one of condemnation

" One never repents of having pardoned

offences ; one always repents of having punished
them, however just the punishment may have
been.
" A great heart cannot exact vengeance when
it is weak, and ought not to exact it when it is
strong.
" One should only avenge oneself by conferring
benefits ; any other kind of vengeance, hovrever
just, is unworthy of an heroic soul."

And then again, on another page

" It is better to pardon the guilty than to

punish the innocent.
341
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" One ought to pardon every man who con-
fesses his fault and surrenders at discretion."

And finally

" Every crime is a rude penance for him who

has committed it. . . .

"... Where our own actions are concerned,

it is much easier to deceive others than to deceive
ourselves."

It was an old story —thirty years perhaps, old,

at the time of writing — which these sentiments of
evoke the memory but there can be no doubt as
;

to their reference to it. There is no other story

in Christina's life to which they are applicable ;

and though they are so buried away in the midst

of mixed aphorisms that their significance might
easily be missed —
and, indeed, has been missed
by the majority of Christina's biographers the —
source of their inspiration is unquestionable.
Conscience was speaking at last. It spoke at
intervals, if not continuously. The ghost had
risen, and the weird had to be dreed. The appeal
for pity on the day on which terror had excluded
pity, and the piercing shrieks of the death agony
recurred and rang in the ears of her who had
ordered the execution. The world had forgiven
—
and forgotten but one may repeat the words
;

" Every crime is a rude penance for him who

has committed it. . . .

342
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
"... Where our own actions are concerned,
it is much easier to deceive others than to
deceive ourselves."

Of a truth Christina must have needed all

her mysticism to face death calmly with that

memory on her mind. It was evidently on her
mind when she wrote

" One ought to fear the least little sin more

than one fears death."

But she made her effort, and, by dint of prayer

—
and repentance and, as she would doubtless
—
have added, love ultimately smothered the
memory which she could not altogether escape
from. This is the passage in which, knowing
that she will soon have to face death, she sums
up her conclusion of the whole matter

" Our true glory and happiness depend only

upon the last moment of our life. All the rest
passes like smoke which disappears, carried away
by the wind. It is only at our last hour —be it

happ}'', or be it terrible — that God will reveal

us to ourselves as we really are, and as we shall
have to throughout all eternity, in the sight
be,
of the Universe and of God Himself.
" The Universe is a great and glorious temple,
and the earth on which we dwell is its magni-
ficent altar. God, for His own glory, brought
this great and beautiful earth out of nothingness ;

343
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
but it is His will that all shall return thereto.
Let us submit to His eternal decrees, and let us
be fully persuaded that it is just that all things
should perish for His glory and greatness, seeing
that nothing exists save through His glory and
greatness ;and that there is no day on which
Nature ought not to pay homage to its Author
for millions of victims, sacrificed, at every passing
moment, by Time and Death to this Infinite
and Incomprehensible Being, who alone exists,
and who alone is worthy to exist. When our
turn arrives, let us adore this Infinite Being
with perfect resignation, and have no fear of
death, because God is just. Let us live, however,
in such a way that we may be able to hope for
happiness after death ; and then let us leave
to Him alone the care of our destiny, and, since
God is God, and ever will be God, let us throw
ourselves into His arms, hoping from His good-
ness alone the happy and glorious eternity which
His sacrifice has merited for us."

That is the final confession of faith : the con-

fession of a Catholic who had
only arrived at
making it after doing fierce battle with an over-
w^eening pride, with the vivacity of an excitable
temperament, w^ith some, at least, of those
passions which she described as " the salt of
life," and with a disposition to court flattery,
make herself important, and interfere with every-
body's business. It may be that it was not
until death had her by the throat that she
344
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
actually won but one finds traces
the battle ;

of the devout frame of mind in more than one

of her later letters. One finds one such example
in a letter to her cousin, Count Wasenau, a natural
son of Vladislas of Poland, whom she exhorted
to quit Court circles and take monastic vows

" I envy " (she wrote) " the condition which

makes this noble determination practicable for
you. Nothing else is so great, so glorious, or so
beautiful as the unreserved consecration of one-
self to God. . . .

"... Trust in God, not in yourself, and, if

you are quite sure of your vocation, leave the
world at once; leave it as you would leave a
burning house. Have the courage to give God
the little that you possess, and do not fear to be
the loser. He will repay you with interest."

She added — for she found that temptation

almost always irresistible —a word about her-
self—

" How gloriousand how delightful, to

it is,

serve so good a Master How happy I am to

!

have given up so much to Him There is a satis- !

faction in that which is worth more than the

empire of the world."

Another remarkable letter is that in which

she condoled with Del Monte on his father's
death
345
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" He was taken ill this morning, and, by-
sunset, he was dead. What are we ? We are
dust and ashes we are nothing. May God
;

have mercy on us, and grant us grace to die in

the enjoyment of His favour Everything else !

is W^e shall all pass like shadows. Life

vanity.
is like a dream —
gone like a flash of lightning.
We are journeying —
hasting to eternity. May—
God, in His mercy, grant us a happy arrival at
"
the haven ! N

Her own need of the divine mercy was already

near at hand when she wrote that. She knew
it, or suspected it, and she acquiesced.
In a
letter to Mile de Scudery, the novelist, the —
only letter preserved out of a considerable corre-
—
spondence, she defines, as it were, her position
in the Land of Beulah.
She does not forget that she is, as she has
always desired to be, the patroness of art and
letters so she pays the novelist compliments,
;

which are a little more than conventional

Your works " (she writes) " are agreeable,

*'

useful, and learned. Your manner of handling

a beautiful subject charms me. You amuse
and instruct, and you are never tedious. I thank
you for sending me the books. I owe many
pleasant hours to you. I know not how to re-
pay you for them."

But she makes such a return as she can by

346
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
writing confidentially about herself. She has
not improved in appearance, she says, since
her correspondent last saw her, the flattery —
of courtiers does not impose upon her and ;

she has still graver reasons for feeling dis-

satisfied

" I envy neither the good fortune, nor the

vast domains, nor the treasures of those who
possess these advantages but I should like
;

my merits and my virtues to raise me above

the level of the rest of mankind. There you
have the grounds of the discontent which I
feel."

For the rest, she is, for the time being, in

perfect health ; but old age is stealing upon
her, and she does not like the prospect of old
age—

" were given the choice between old age

If I
and death, I think I should, without hesitation,
choose the latter. Still, I have not been con-
sulted, and I have accustomed myself to take
life as it comes, and enjoy it. Death, never-
theless, is approaching, and will not fail to
keep his appointment but my mind is not
;

disturbed. I do not desire death, but I await

it without fearing it."

Presently she fell ill with an attack of

erysipelas, accompanied by high fever. She
347
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
rallied, and wrote to her Governor-General,
Olivekrans

—
" It has pleased God contrary to my ex-
—
pectations and hopes to snatch me from the
arms of death. I believed this last journey to
be inevitable, and I had quite made up my
mind to it. Thanks, however, to the combined
miracle of grace, nature, and the medical art,
I am still full of life ; and the strength of my
constitution has conquered a disease to which
twenty Herculeses might have succumbed. I
suppose it v/as grace which strengthened me,
and enabled me to surprise the doctors."

But then came relapse. Some historians

attribute it to the shock which she felt at hear-
ing of a scandal in her household — some affair
between a chambermaid and an abbe but she ;

was too ill for any such explanation to be

necessary. She recognised, at any rate, that
death, this time, was really imminent and she ;

made her preparations. Her will was brought

to her to be signed, and a message was sent to
the Pope, asking pardon for the affronts which
her pride had put upon him, and begging for
absolution and his blessing. He, too, was ill,
or he would have come to her. As it was, he
sent a Cardinal to speak the words of comJort
which she needed and she died peacefully at
;

dawn on an April morning.

It has been said that visions of Monaldeschi
348
 COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
haunted her in her death agony ;but that
statement seems to have been the fabrication
of an enemy, or of one who felt that a dramatic
life needed a dramatic climax. All the con-
temporary evidence goes to show that she died
in her sleep —
or in a state of coma —
comforted
by the presence of Azzolino, who had w^atched
beside her night and day, and w^as now to be the
executor of her wnll and her residuary legatee.
He alone had really mattered to her, though
much else had sometimes seemed to matter.
Living her own life had meant many things to
begin with but, in the end, it had come to
;

mean living in the enjoyment of such love as he

could accord to her. There had been trouble,
—
as we have seen and something very like
—
quarrel and estrangement because, while she
had loved, he had only let himself be loved ;

but, as the advancing years altered the char-

acter of her desires, she had been content to see
passion decline into peaceful and faithful friend-
ship. It liad been her boast —
engraved, like
—
almost all her boasts, upon a medal that she
" had been born free and would die free " but ;

there was a kind of freedom which she neither

attained nor sought. Servitude to her affec-
tions was not only acceptable but wclcomxe to
her.
Those chains she hugged. She died hugging
them and therefore slie died happy. They
;

had not confined her spirit, but had contributed

to its emancipation.
349
 INDEX
Abo, Bishop of, 230. Borri, the alchemist, 235.
Adami, relative of Azzolino, 242. Bourdelot, Dr., Christina's French
Alexander vii., Pope, and Chris- physician, 97 quarrel with
;

tina's private renunciation, 155 ;

Court physicians, 98 Master ;

orders Cardinal Colonna to of the Revels, 99 suggests ;

leave Rome, 166, 171 ; dis- practical jokes on scholars, 100,

satisfied with Christina's ex- loi trouble with Magnus de
;

planation of Monaldeschi's la Gardie, 102, 103 130. ;

death, 217. Brahe, Count, 141, 226.

Altieri, Cardinal, 312; elected Pope Brahe, Ebba, 53, 56, 106.
Clement x., 313 death, 314.
;
Brahe, Tycho, 53.
Anne of Austria, 181, 182, 183, Burnet, Bishop, 316.
214, 215.
Arckenholtz, Johann, 299, 300. Casati, Paul, 131, 134, 137.
Azzolino, Cardinal, 169, 171, 174, Catherine, daughter of Charles IX.,
183, 184, 187, 193 return to ; 50.
Christina, 217 his character
; Chanut, French Ambassador,
and relations with Christina, story of Christina, 13 58 his ; ;

219, 220, 221 composes a

; character sketch of Christina,
Court for Christina, 237, 241, 63; 75, 76, 85, 119, 123, 124,
243, 246 Christina's corre-
; 125, 130, 209.
spondence with, 248, 249, 250, Chapelain, M., 179.
25 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 260,
I, Charles Gustavus, afterwards
261, 262, 272, 274, 275, 276, Charles x., 49, 56 succeeds ;

277 ; recommending Christina Christina, 138, 139, 140,

137,
for throne of Poland, 284, 285, 141, 142, 144, 169 at the wars, ;

286, 287, 288, 289; 294, 308, 309, 182, 223 ; news of his death,
310,311,312,316,317, 335,349- 224.
Charles I. of England, 17, 87.
Baner, General, 44. Charles II. of England, 56, 114,
Barberini, the, 164. 159, 206.
Barine, Arv^de, 150. Charles, Prince of Lorraine, candi-
Beaulieu, Master of the Cere- date for the throne of Poland,
monies, 126, 127. 283.
Bildt,Baron de, 8, 54 Cliristine ;
Chigi, Cardinal, 260.
de Suede ct le Cardinal Azzo- Christina, her passion for self-
lino, 172, 220. development, I ;
birth, 20 ;

Bochart, Dr., 43, 94 as Christina's

; regency, 25 childhood, 29
; ;

playfellow, 95, 100, 148. education, 33 coronation, 43

; ;

Boeder, Prof., trouble with Swed- conclusion of the Thirty Years

ish students, 92. War, 45 Court of Scholars,
;

Boreel, Dutch Ambassador at 46, 86 determination against

;

Paris, 154. marriage, 48 sentimental char-

;

351
 INDEX
Christina {continued) — death of Monaldeschi, igi ;

acteristics,49 romance with ; comments on the incident by

Charles Augustus, 50 suitors, ; Qui Patin, 192, Mme
de Motte-
56 curiosity of French Court,
; ville, 193, and Mile de Mont-
62 Chanut's character sketch,
; pensier, 194 details of the
;

63 ; Father Mannerscheid's execution, 196, 197, 198, 199,

character sketch, 67 hterature ; 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205 ;

and arts, T^, 74, 75 desire for

; attitude of the French Court,
a salon, 74 ; invitation to 206 refusal of Christina to
;

Descartes, 78, 79 ;
practical leave France in disgrace, 207 ;
joke upon Saumaise, 88, 89 her letters of justification for
her jest as teacher of glees, 89 ;
Monaldeschi's murder, 208, 209,
Dr. Bochart as playfellow, 95 ;
210 ;
proposal to visit Cromwell,
Bourdelot as French physician, 212, 213 ; second visit to Paris
97 practical jokes on scholars
;
"to see the King dance," 213 ;

at his suggestion, 100 con- ; leaves for Rome, 215 ; financial

version to Roman Catholicism, difficulties,216, 217, 221, 222,
122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 223, 224 ; return to Sweden,
129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134; ab- 224, 225 unpleasant reception
;

dication, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, there, 226, 227, 228 quarrel ;

140, 141, 142, 143, 144 her de- ; with the Bishop of Abo, 230,
parture, collections literary and 231 ; disgusted with Sweden,
artistic, 146,147 in male attire, ; repairs to Hamburg, 231, 232 ;
as the son of Count Dohna, life at Hamburg — manifold pre-
150; arrival at Hamburg, hos- occupations, 233, 234 Borri ;

pitality of Jewish banker, 151 ;

the alchemist's deception, 235 ;

visit to College atJesuits' converts Prof. Lambecius, 236 ;

Miinster, 151 ; Tott succeeded returns to Rome, 236 her ;

in favour by Pimentelli, 154 ;

Court, 237 attitude towards
;

arrival at Brussels, forswears Roman ladies, 238 questions ;

Lutheranism, 155 ; private re- of etiquette, 239 in the role ;

nunciation, 155, 156; received of peacemaker, 240, 241 Swed- ;

publicly into Roman Church at ish agents cheat her, 242 de- ;

Innsbruck, way of life, 156; cides again to visit Sweden ;

leaves Brussels for Rome, 158, rigorous Swedish conditions,

159, 160 the Rubicon crossed,
; 243 second sojourn to Ham-
;

162 Cardinal Colonna in love

; burg, 245, 246 fears of assassi-
;

with, 166 Farnese Palace part-

; nation, 247, 248 her manner ;

ly dismantled, 167 dismissal of ; —

of life correspondence with
Grand Equerry, Antonio della Azzolino, 248 iears that his
;

Cueva, 168 money supply ir- ; piety will prevent him being
regular, 169 departure for ; her lover, 249, 250 ; a fancy
Sweden through France, 170; dress ball, 256 second expedi- ;

desire to become Queen of tion to Sweden —

letters to Az-
Naples, 172; interview with zolino, 260, 261, 262, 263 ; mass
Mile de Montpensier, 174, 175 ;
performed in defiance of law,
reception in Paris, 176 meet- ; 264 her priest ordered out
;

ing with Mazarin, Anne of Aus- of the country, 266 she de- ;

tria, and Louis xiv. at Com- parts also to Hamburg, 268 ;

piegne, 178, 179, 180, iSi, 182, back at Hamburg — longing for
183, 184, 185 return to Italy, ; Rome and Azzolino, 270 elec- ;

186, 187 return to France, 189

; ;
tion of a new Pope ; celebrations

at Fontainebleau, 190 tragic ; and illuminations in honour of

352
 INDEX
Christina {continued) — 345, 346 ; her last illness,
Clement IX., 272 her windows
; 347 ; letter to Olivekrans, 348 ;

broken by the mob, 272, 273 reconciliation with the Pope

—
;

the vacant throne of Poland her death, 349,

motives for preferring it, 280, Clement IX., Pope (formerly
281 presumption that Azzolino
;
Cardinal Rospigliosi), 272
wishes to get rid of her, 280 ;
death, 304.
indifference to the result of the Clement x., Pope (formerly
election, 284, 285, 286, 287, Cardinal Altieri, 313 ; death,
288 her candidature regarded
;

as ridiculous, 290 its failure,

; Colonna, Cardinal, in love with
291 ;returns to Rome, 293 ;
Christina, 166.
friendly relations with Pope Colonna, Princess, 300.
Clement, 293, 294, 295 golden ;
Comenius, J. A., 93.
age of the Pontificate, 299 at ; Conde, Prince de, 97, 143, 148 ;

last lives her own life, 300 ranked next to Cromwell by

—
patronage of Art her Academy Christina, 153, 156; candidate
— her benefactions, 302, 303 ;
for the throne of Poland, 283,
death of Clement ix., 304, 305 ; 296.
Conclave of 1667 intrigues of — Conring, Hermann, 93.
Christina and Azzolino to se- Crescimbeni, G. M., 302.
cure the election of a friend Cromwell, Oliver, 14, 108, 109,
their failure, 308, 309, 310, 311, 153 Christina's proposed visit
;

312 ;love letter to Azzolino to, 212, 213.

dropped during Conclave, 311 ;
Cueva, Antonio della. Grand
death of Clement X., succeeded Equerry, dismissed, 168.
by Innocent XL, 314 Christina ;

quarrels with him, 315 her ; d'Auvrigny, Father, 148.

zeal for the discomfiture of the Davisson, secretary to Christina,
" Heathen Turk," the cause of 170.
her pension being suppressed Del Monte, Christina's Master
by the Pope, 316 insistence ;
of Horse, 317, 345.
upon the right of asylum for Denmark, peace concluded with,
law-breakers in the precincts of 45-
her Palace, 318, 319, 320, 321 ;
Denmark, Queen of, disguised as
the Pope's commentary on her servant-maid, 150.
conduct, 323, 324, 325 ; Chris- Descartes, Rene, 62, 76, ']•] philo- ;

tina's last years —

Bishop Bur- sopher required both by Chris-
net's description of her, 326, tina and Elizabeth, 78, 79; letter
327 her Aphorisms
;

commingled in
— platitudes
them with
to Elizabeth, 80, 81 ; Christina's
triumph, 81, 82 unpleasant ;

individual thoughts, 328, 329, experiences, 84 death, 85, 88,;

330,331,332 ; Aphorisms about 130, 153 Christina charged as

;

love, religion, 335

333, 334, ;
having killed him, 154.
do the Aphorisms convey the Dohna, Count, 150.
truth concerning her affection Don John of Austria, sixth candi-
for Azzolino? 335, 336, 337, date for the throne of Poland,
338 ; more Aphorisms, 339 ;
290.
the light which they throw Dudley, Sir Robert, 237.
on Christina's life, 340, 341 ;

—
her mysticism indifference to Elizabeth, Princess Palatine of
death, 342, 343, 344; extracts Bohemia, 76, TJ^ 78, 79, 80, 81 ;

from her later correspondence, jealousy concerning Descartes,

353
 INDEX
82, 153; his death, and letters Lascaris, Vice-Legate, 188, 193.
of EHzabeth, 85. le Bel, Father, narrative of Mon-
EHzabeth, Queen of England, 46. aldeschi's assassination, 199,
English diplomatists, modern, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204.
74- le Bouts, P^re, 213.
Leibnitz, Baron G. W. von, 161.
Ferdinand, Emperor, 14. Lenasus, Archbishop, 229.
Filicaia, Vincenzo da, 302, Lenclos, Ninon de, 180, 181.
Frederick of Hesse, 128, 129. Leopold, Archduke, 160.
Fozio, Father, 252. Libraries, German, looted by
Gustavus Adolphus, 73 Nico- ;

Gardie, Jacob de la, 45. las Heinsius, collector of

Gardie, Magnus de la, 53, 56, 61, books for Christina, 92 ; Italians
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 141, complaining, 92 Naudasus,;

247. librarian, 93 Vossius assisting

;

Gardie, Pontus de la, 263, 265, Christina to enlarge her library,

266, 267, 268. 158.
Gardiner, Prof., on the ruin caused Linde, son of Christina's old
by the Thirty Years War, 11. nurse, 227.
Gilbert, M., the reading of his Literature and Arts, 73, 74 Swed- ;

comedy, 179. ish scholars inadequate, 75.

Glauber, the chemist, 271. Loccenius, 93.
Guise, Due de, 174, 177. Longland, letter to Thurloe on
Gustavus, Adolphus, 13 ; com- Monaldeschi's death, 205,
pared to Cromwell, 14 ; mar- Longueville, Mme de, 149.
riage, 18; death, 24; looted Louis XIV., 181 refusal to visit
;

German libraries, T2)- Christina after Monaldeschi's

death, 206, 282.
Heinsius, Daniel, 91.
Heinsius, Nicholas, 91, 92. Macedo, Father, 130, 131.
Henrietta Maria, Queen, 178. Malines, Francesco, 131, 170.
Hesse, Landgrave of, entertains Mancini, Marie de, 184.
Christina, 151. Mannerschied, Father, character
Hesse-Homburg, Landgrave of, sketch of Christina, 67.
293- Maria, Princess, 50.
Holsteinius, Legate, 160, 161. Marie-Eleonore of Brandenburg,
Huet, Peter Daniel, 90 ; intro- marriage to Gustavus, 18; char-
duced to Christina by Bochart, acter, 25 morbidity of living,
;

94- 29 ;leaves Sweden, 38 102, ;

140, 142.
Innocent xi., 7, 314. " Marshal of the Boors," 138,
139-
James i. of England, 76. Marston Moor, battle of, 17.
Jebb, Sir Richard, 87. Mary, Princess of Orange, acute
John Casimir, King of Poland, tale of poverty, 178.
281, 282. Mazarin, Cardinal, 158, 170, 173,
Johnson, Dr., 87. 182,183, 184, 185, 186, 188,
Jusserand, M., 74. 189, 190, 209, 210, 211, 215.
Medonius, 148,
Kleihe, Swedish noble, 293. Meibom, 93 ; victim of Bour-
delot's pleasantry, 100.
Lambecius, Prof., 236. Menage, Filler, wit and man of
Landini, Capt. Francesco, 170. letters, 178, 179.

354
 INDEX
Milton, John, 87, Salon, Christina's desire for, 74.
Modena, the Duke of, 172, 215. Santinelli,Francesco, 168, 170,
Molinos, Miguel, the " Quietist," 189; assassin of Monaldeschi,
318. 191, 196, 198, 199 ; Christina's
Monaldeschi, Grand Equerry to justification of, 208, 209 ; pawns
Christina, 168, 170, 189; tragic uniforms of Swiss Guard, 216 ;

death, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 ;

robbery and rascalities, 221,
his alleged treason, 196, 197, 222.
198, 199, 200, 201 details of; Santinelli, Ludovico, 168, 170.
his assassination, 202, 203, 204, Saumaise, C. de, 86, 87 Chris- ;

205, 206, 207. tina's practical joke, 88, 89, 90 ;

Montpensier, Mile de, 174, 175, nominates Bourdelot, 98.

180, 185, 194. Schlippenbach, Count, 104, 105.
Motteville, Mme
de, 54, 61, 180, Schoeffler, 93.
181, 182. Scholars, Christina's Court of, 46,
Musset, Alfred de, 3. 86.
Scudery, Mile de, 346.
Naudaeus, librarian, 93 victim ; Sobieski, John, 222, 305.
of Bourdelot's pleasantry, 100. Socr,ates, 58.
Neuburg, Duke candidate for
of, Sparre, Mile Ebba, 88, 89, 156,
the throne of Poland, 283. 165.
Spencer, Herbert, 84.
Odescalchi, Cardinal Pope Inno- — Steinberg, Christina's Equerry,
cent XI., 314. 104.
Olivekrans, Christina's Governor- Stiernhielm, introduces burning-
General, 348. glasses and microscopes, 93.
Oxenstiern, Chancellor, 17, 25 ; Sweden, position of, among the
removes Christina from her Powers, 10.
mother, 33 statesmanship, 40
; ;

Christina's tutor, 41, 45, 56, 61, Tacitus, 65.

136. Terlon, French Ambassador, 263.
Texeira, the Jew, 242, 294.
Patin, Gui, 205, 211. Thiene, Count Annibale, 170.
Patru, Olivier, 177. Thirty Years War, 10; conclusion,
Peace with Denmark concluded, 45-
45 Thirty Years War, 45.
; Thurloe, John, 205.
Philip IV. of Spain as suitor, Tilly, General, 15.
56. Torstensen, General, 45.
Pimentelli, Spanish Ambassador, Tott, Grave, 112; proposed by
154, 155, 159 ; coach plundered, Christinaas successor to Charles
167, 173. Gustavus, 138, 154; Swedish
Poniatowski, Prince, nominee of Ambassador in Paris, 242.
Catherine the Great for the
throne of Poland, 281. Vidoni, Cardinal, 309, 310.
Posnania, Bishop of, 290. Virgil, 65 copy left by Christina
;

inchurch at Hamburg, 151.

Richelieu, Cardinal, 17, 41, 61. Vossius, 89 subsequently Dean
;

Rodd, Sir Rennell, 74. of Windsor, 90, 94 further ;

Ross, Adrian, 84. opportunities to steal Christina's

Russia, Mission from, 26. books, I s8.

Saint-Pol, Comte de, 295. Wasenau, Count, 345.

Salmasius, see Saumaise, C. de. Weimar, Bernard of, 16.
355
 INDEX
Westphalia, Treaty of, 45. Korybut — seventh candidate
Whitelocke, Sir Bulstrode, British for the throne of Poland, 290.
Ambassador, 54, 106, 107, 108, Wrangel, Countess, 258.
109,110, III, 112, 113, 114, IIS, Wrangel, Lord High Constable,
116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 138, 257, 258, 262, 293.
139, 153-
Wiesnowiecki — Prince Michel Zucchi, Father, 252.

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