YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY Gift of
Mrs. Adolph B. Benson

THE COURT OF
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN

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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.

New York and London
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
19*3

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

PREFACE
The question has been raised, indeed, whether
Christina, who has 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 principles ; and the attempt
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 it, but impossible to read it, — for
reasons which will be recognised as valid by
every one who has made the attempt.
FRANCIS GRIBBLE.
August 27, 1913.

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
The End of the Thirty 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 ...... 1
CHAPTER II
The Thirty Years War — Why Sweden joined in it —
Position of Sweden in Europe during Christina's
Childhood . . . . . .10
CHAPTER III
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 like a Boy — Her Precocity —
Her Scepticism — Her Training in Political Philosophy . 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

PAGE

Characteristics — Her Romantic Attachment to her
Cousin, Charles Gustavus — Her Breach with him —
Her Romantic Attachment to Magnus de la Gardie . 43
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 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, Prin
cess Palatine — Unpleasant Experiences of Descartes v
— His Death in Sweden . . . . ( 73
CHAPTER VIII
Christina's Court of Scholars — Saumaise — The practical
Joke which Christina played on him — His gorgeous
Court Dress — Vossius, afterwards Canon of Windsor
— Daniel Heinsius and his bibulous Propensities —
Nicholas Heinsius — Stiernhielm — Naudaeus — Bochart
— Christina's Nervous Breakdown — Frivolity pre- /
scribed as a Cure for it — She plays Battledore and '^~^
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
Character Sketch of Christina — His Dance with her
X

CONTENTS
PAGE
— His Conversations with her on various Subjects —
She informs him of her Intention to Abdicate — His
unsuccessful Attempt to dissuade her . .107
CHAPTER XI
Christina's Conversion to Roman Catholicism — Her Con
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 XII
The great Renunciation — Christina abdicates in Favour
of her Cousin, Charles Gustavus — Picturesque Details
of the Ceremony — Christina's Departure — Her
Reasons for expediting it — Attempts to detain her
— Across the Danish Frontier — Free to live her
own Life at last . . . . .135
CHAPTER XIII
What the World thought of Christina's Abdication — Her
Travels — Denmark — Hamburg — Brussels — Her
private Reception into the Church at Brussels —
Her Manner of Life there — Her Delight at her
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 loves her in vain — Roman
Society objects to her Manners — Her Departure
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
PAGE
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
crime passionel ? — Comments on the Incident by Gui
Patin — By Mme de Motteville — By Mile de Mont-
pensier — Treason, Terror, and Nerves . .187
CHAPTER XVII
Monaldeschi's alleged Treason — Impossibility of discover
ing the Particulars — Details of the Execution — Done
to Death in the Galerie des Cerfs — Attitude of the
French Court — Christina's Refusal to leave France
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 Visit to Paris — Her Return to Rome
— Her Financial Difficulties .... 208
CHAPTER XIX
Cardinal Azzolino — His Character and his Relations with
Christina — Christina's Financial 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 . 219
CHAPTER XX
Life at Hamburg — Manifold Preoccupations — The Mrs.
Jellyby of the North — Return to Rome — Social Life
— Christina's Attitude towards the Roman Ladies 
Questions of Etiquette — Christina in the Role of
Peacemaker — Further Financial Embarrassments 
Decision to pay yet another Visit to Sweden 233
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 — A Fancy
Dress Ball ...... 245
CHAPTER XXII
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 Hamburg — Election of a new Pope — Christina
illuminates in Honour of Clement ix. — Her Windows
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 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 . . . . . .280
CHAPTER XXV
The Return to Rome — Friendly Relations with a culti
vated Pope — The Golden Age of the Pontificate
— Christina at last lives her own Life in her own
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

PAGE

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. — 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 . 314
CHAPTER XXVIII
Christina's last Years — Bishop Burnet's Description of
her — Her Aphorisms — Platitudes commingled in
them with individual Thoughts — Aphorisms about
Love — And about Religion — Do the Aphorisms
convey the Truth concerning her Affection for
Azzolino? ...... 326
CHAPTER XXIX
More Aphorisms — ¦ The Light which they throw on
Christina's Life — Her Mysticism — Her Indifference
to Death — Extracts from her later Correspondence
— Her last Illness — Her Reconciliation with the
Pope, and her Death .... 339
INDEX  .351

XIV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Queen Christina ..... Frontispiece
From a painting by Sebastien Bourdon. TO FACE PAGE
Elisabeth, Princess Palatine . . . .80
Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Emery
Walker of Gerard Honthorst's painting, in the National
Portrait Gallery.
Descartes ....... 154
From the painting by Franz Hals, in the Louvre.
Mlle de Montpensier . . . . .194
Cardinal Azzolino ..... 220
Queen Christina ...... 300
From a painting by Sebastien Bourdon.

XV

THE COURT OF
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
CHAPTER I
The end of the Thirty 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 full gallop, though tears always
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.
It is as a Queen to whom the pride of her
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, as we 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 for kings and queens, unless
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 insisting upon a lion's share of
the common lot : as did John Orth, for instance,
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 as the Catholics nor so
despicable a woman as the Protestants have
represented. She was, at once, more unique
and more human than the controversialists on
either side allow. Above all, she was more
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 xr. 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 North — that mysterious
malady with which Rosen'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 disciplined 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 — PositioD
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 if they stood aloof ; others again in the
hope of snatching advantage 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
districts, practically wiped out the population;
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
civilians in order to compel them to bring their
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 of corpses torn from their
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 of these horrors, picked at random
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. The 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 the Emperor'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 great
Gustavus Adolphus.
His motives, no doubt, like most human
motives, were mixed. He had 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 late, Gustavus Adolphus felt,
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 mobility and in his power of
maintaining discipline. 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."
Then, 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.

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 indioated : 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 man : a 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 pretty 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 astrologers — for those 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). " I hope my daughter
will be as good as a son to me. Since God has
given her, may God preserve her ! "
He added that " she ought to be clever since
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 it had 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 not a very conspicuous,
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 tender age
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 Lutzen, 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
of his soul, though she felt that she must express
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 just and eternal decrees, and admire
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 serve, honour, and assist
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. It was easy to persuade the Republi
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 children 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 with her mother — Her
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.
It might 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
felt that 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 all, with the obsti
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 — 31

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" The Queen-Dowager " (Christina comments)
" had many good qualities ; but she had none
of the qualities 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, indeed, showed herself as
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 that something was wrong, and put
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
letter the instructions which Gustavus Adolphus
had given was formally posed ; and the course
of the discussion was uncomplimentary, as well
as unfavourable, to Marie-Eleonore —
" It is necessary for the young Queen to be
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."
" We have 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 Knes
were she herself tells us —
" The King had enjoined them to educate me
84

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 sex, except in so far as honour
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 marvellous manner ; 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
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
all events, she tried to be, and made believe to
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 or by 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, indeed, could only have been
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 — of which more presently — as
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.
She was not then allowed to return to her
mother ; and Marie-Eleonore, indignant at
what seemed to her the denial of her natural 37

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, we 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 sin and an act of impiety
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 and his conduct of the war we
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 talk. There was no other
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 War — Her determination never to marry —
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 it would be pedantry to speak of her other
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. The 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 establish
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
tected me ; and I owe to Thy grace the delicacy
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
fession, being packed with repetitions, has been
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 over cultivated.
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. i
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 rejoiced in war, but, in modern
phraseology, a " beefy " and " beery " man.
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
feelings will displease me : as a proof of your
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
satisfaction in the embraces of her rivals, 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 la Gardie — General Jacob de
la Gardie's son — had now come into her life.
Young Magnus was young and brilliant —
attractive in all the ways in which Charles
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, declined to make allowances or listen to
arguments, but threw him over as summarily as
if he 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 wicked 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 feeling 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
n. 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 like 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 may not 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 case, Christina's aversion from marriage
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 tentative beginnings of her
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 — 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
One of the effects of the Thirty Years War was
an entente between Sweden and France. We
have already seen Oxenstiern negotiating with
Richelieu, who, being a statesman and a French
man first, and a Catholic 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 Swedish 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. Mme de 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 is a faint suggestion here of an untidy
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 Ambassador 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 it is not only in the study that she excels ;
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 Ministers 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 withjhis 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 is nothing feminine about her except
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 paragraphist of a
Society paper ; his next paragraph dealing with
Christina's indifference to gorgeous apparel —
" Her riding-habit is a very cheap affair. I
doubt whether it can have cost more than four
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. When 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 company ; and when she dines
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 she had 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 of Europe, and treated them with
great liberality ; and nothing is wanting to
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
to that of the Smart Set ; working double tides
in order to find time for everything which she
keenly 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, in a moment, how the nervous
breakdown occurred and the physician inter
vened ; but we must first fill in the details of the
pictures drawn by the Ambassador and the
Jesuit, and show howT 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 her 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 men 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 in a Birmingham hotel.
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. The first confidence was to the
effect that she wanted to meet the clever people
who wrote the clever books ; that, as she could
not visit them, she wanted them to visit her ;
that, as Swedish scholars were uninteresting,
she would like to be put in communication
with 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 climate 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
librarians and 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, for some time, Elizabeth's
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 of Bohemia. She was living at
The Hague, a prey to melancholia, 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. She 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 therefore showed
Christina a number of letters which he had
written to Elizabeth, singing Christina's praises
in Elizabeth's ear —
" What I hear of her " (he wrote) " inspires me
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 first letter to Christina shows how com
pletely his eyes were dazzled by the distinction
bestowed on him —
" Madam, — If a letter had come to me from
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 that " neither
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 were already
united in the bond of a common affection for
himself. He saw Christina twice, and then he wrote —
" She has all the 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 heart which 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

Jrtrm ajxairvtuza vy yerarcL ^/urwuvorJ^b

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 for supposing that she was
indifferent to the triumph. The triumph may
very well have been the more irritating to
F 81

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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 against it 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."
It is more than feminine, — it is feline. Eliza
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.
His first experiences of Christina's Court
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
Munster. 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 shuffling 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
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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 Your 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 Windsor — Daniel Heinsius
and his bibulous propensities — Nicolas Heinsius — Stiem-
hielm — Naudseus — Bochart — Christina's nervous break
down — Frivolity prescribed as a cure for it — She plays
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 work of devotion entitled " How to
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 little 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 n. 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.
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Christina had 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 injustice by confusing him with his
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 lectus 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
furtheroutrages, — smashing his bedroom windows
by night, when 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.
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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 the latter he magnified
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.
Naudaus, who was yet another of Christina's
numerous librarians ; Meibom, the great auth
ority on the music of the ancients; Comenius,
who undertook to reorganise Swedish educa
tion ; Hermann Conring, Loccenius, Schoeffler- —
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. 93

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 public ministry of his
religion 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
filings. They left all to 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. Christina was de
lighted to see him, — she kept open 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 found 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. It was amazing as well as embarrassing ;
but there was an explanation. 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 livelier life, — 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
desire for a wife, reminding him than an Argive
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
Chiistina'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 callings 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
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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 not. 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
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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 shall see, with an earlier infatua
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 Naudseus
and Meibom. The latter was the greatest living
authority on the Music of the Ancients ; the
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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 haze 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 latter charged
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
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" nose out of joint " : no more ; no less. Magnus
de la Gardie was 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 retired in good order, loaded with
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 is that he overdid his jocularity, and
Christina tired of it when she recovered her
health and mental balance ; but the story that
she tossed away a letter which he wrote 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 was 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
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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 —
" Do not imagine " (Christina wrote) " that
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 interests, there is no reason
why I should give any further thought to
them. . . . 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." It is an 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 son of Gustavus Adolphus and the
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 Whitelocke, 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 Whitelocke 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 " political 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
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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 polite to regicides. On the
other hand, he was too good a Parliamentarian 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 that he did no violence to
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
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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. "Why 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 cited ; a formal reception
of the diplomatic corps having to be put off on
account of that Muscovite's excesses —
" The Russ " (Whitelocke tells us) " had sent
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-vito3
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. Whitelocke
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 glorious Mars and Jupiter brought you to Swede,
Who, doubtless, with your famous will and wisdom,
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 so to business ; though, as Whitelocke's
business is not ours, we will not dwell upon it,
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 n. —
" 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." A compliment 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 115

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
in England perplexed her ; and she was also
curious to know what Whitelocke 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 Whitelocke 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."
Whereto Whitelocke properly replied that the
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,
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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 Whitelocke 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 Whitelocke 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 that have been
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 —
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" Sir, this it is. I have it in my thoughts
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 motives, which will appear. 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
to discharge that duty. He then warned her
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 : " I look 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 will come to me into Pomer-
land, you shall be as welcome as any man living,
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 religion — The seed sown by Father Marcedo — The
evangelists sent from Rome — Prolonged 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 Whitelocke 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 Whitelocke, 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 26, 1653) "that this fancy hath
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
five since I communicated it to you. In all that
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
123

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
of in sackcloth and ashes. Nor is she acting with
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,
124

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 real danger 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." j
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 ; or she could have
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 is too glaring to be ex
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, like most clever young women, in
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 Jesuit, and
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, she wished 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 Pope'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."
" Have you letters for me ? "
" 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 lips, not exactly in jest, but with a certain
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 ; and it was a
fixed idea with her, in later years, that she had
never in her life believed the Lutheran tenets.
We have only her word for that; but we can
easily conceive that Catholicism appealed to
her by its trick of whittling away intellectual
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 w» heard that," said Casati, " we
felt like men raised from the dead " ; and the
rest was only detail. Supposing she were
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
cousin, Charles Gustavus — Picturesque details of the cere
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 IJbsen 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
ment ? " 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 do not know " (they represented)
" 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 less, being convinced
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
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."
Having so 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 : " I think he spake from his heart."
Whitelocke : " I believe he did, and acted so
too, especially when he wiped his eyes." 139

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. The 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"— " 0 Lord God, Madam, what do you mean to
138

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Queen : "He showed his affection to me in
that posture more than greater men did in their
spheres." But Christina was no more to be moved by
the mean man's tears than by the great men's
copy-book morality. 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 bitter enemy. Behind her were
stationed the Chamberlain and the Captain of
the Royal Guard. Beside her stood Charles
Gustavus, habited 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 it beyond the protestation
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. " Hoav 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 hozc 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 Cond6 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 shall never regret having paid that price
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
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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 Christina's abdication — Her travels
— Denmark — Hamburg — Brussels — Her private reception
into the Church at Brussels — Her manner of life there —
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
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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
living in a dream," exclaimed Bochart. He could
not but approve, he said, her contempt for the
glories of this world ; 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 bleeds when I think that she is
voluntarily depriving herself of so many means of
doing good, — never to be recovered when once
she has let go of them. She will regret what she
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."
The 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, in truth, incomparable " (she added).
" 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
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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
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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 Minister, 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 vn. 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 Whitelocke 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 related, in order to stare at Christina, coming
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 her inmost 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 Bored,
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

//v/?i Me pa in tiny /y. . '/'/rml . Ha/j m tfie Jet

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 vn. — a pious Pope who
took religion seriously : even the King of Spain
besought him in vain to relax the rigour of his
ruling. So Christina 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 Rome one 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 suite and made
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 religion
or preachers in her suite, replied that she had
not. Since her departure from Sweden, she
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 it. is
said to have met Christina 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
self a convert from Lutheranism, and now a
Canon of St. Peter's and Librarian of the Vatican,
— a man of learning and 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, recited the Nicene Creed, and
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
160

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 the homage 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, and I have received the permission
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 a week 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
162

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
163

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.
164

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 it was only apparent,
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 had taken to his bosom a
crowned dilettante, — a woman singularly free of
165

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 tell her beads instead
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
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
which she was established. They tried to turn
some of the apartments into a public 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 their rivals. When she disregarded their
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 of homage, she
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 shall meet again. But Roman Society as
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 the right remedy
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 four galleys for the sea voyage.
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
170

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, at any 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
riding at Christina's side. They conducted her
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 l'Ho-
pital and 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 Queen Christina's presence, at the house of
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 story is a fitting pendant to that of the
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
gallantry, and his literary and 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."
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
Her manners, too, it must be admitted, were
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." It was 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
" You should 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 Italy — The return to France — Christina at
Fontainebleau — The tragic death of Monaldeschi — Was it
a murder or an execution? — Was it a crime passionel}
— 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  "
What the Vice-Legate was on the point of
saying involves a play upon Italian words
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 Patin 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 in preparation for the
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 princes. The name of the assassin
is Santinelli, and the name of the man assassin
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 Patin's letters. It is not
quite clear whether, in what he says about
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,1
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,1 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
fail to 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 told Monaldeschi her
grounds of complaint against him, and given
him to understand that it was all one to her
whether she had him beheaded in Sweden 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
1 Mazarin.
194

Tf/ir (-//• _ / (intpttKj

tpf-n^jt-cr:

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 own vindication 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 well 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 matter 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 to death 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. Monaldeschi, 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, was not Chris
tina's view of the 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 incident ; and 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 him to 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.
I promise 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, it might be, by his
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 le Bel begins by telling us how he,
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, however 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
of her, — and also afraid of herself, and afraid of
her own fears, — and that 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 in your
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 by 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. My 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 to forgive him. She told the Confessor to
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 Court 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 inflict the punishment in
a French Palace. If we could imagine Napoleon
in. detecting one of his suite in treasonable
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 n., 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 courtiers, in which swords were drawn.
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 stay, — 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 Santinelli : the rascal who had robbed
her, was still robbing her, and had no intention
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
telligence or your honour. Always behave like
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 delinquency. 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 already
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 is the defence : characteristically
feminine in two 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 the fingers 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 Mazarin'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.
It was an excuse, of course, — 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 he 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'a ceux qui les font, — 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 the 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 fled 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 ; so that there was a
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 qviite 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 at Rome, in 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 when she
217

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
left Rome, for the first time, in quest of adventure.
Now, at the hour of her need, he came back into
her life, 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's financial 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
French lady's famous question to a gentleman
who vouched too emphatically for another lady's
virtue : " Comment faites-vous, monsieur, pour
etre si sur de ces chose-la ? " Perhaps the
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.
First of all, he helped her to make her peace
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 feelings, he represented, would be hurt, if
Christina reminded him of the loan.
All that, and much else, came out during
Santinelli's absence, much as a fraudulent bank
clerk's embezzlements are discovered when he
221

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
takes a holiday. Christina was furious and
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

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 substantial ; 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 what — 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 Longland 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 wrong in dep
recating my arrival." The good Swedes pro
posed to settle that point without the assistance
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 regret extremely to find myself placed in
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 force ; with the result that the
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 like 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 know very 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 less in them than Christina's champions
believe ; and the outburst is, at any rate, a
further proof that Christina lived near the
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 life — Christina's
attitude towards the Roman ladies — Questions of etiquette
— Christina in the r61e of peacemaker — Further financial
embarrassments — Decision to pay yet another visit to
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.
She 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 at Hamburg was the
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 iniqua?
Casibus et tristi sustrahis 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.
Ccelum non animum mutant qui trans mare
currunt. Restlessness was in her blood, and it
distressed her to feel that the world was 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 of all,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
important 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 over, the Pope will understand
that I have rendered him 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
i 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 bill for 24,000 crowns, and was beginning to
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 was unexpectedly
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 things. 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. Wherever 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 fears of assassina
tion — Her manner of life — Her correspondence with
Azzolino — Her fears that his piety will prevent him from
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. When
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 to. Staying at Hamburg, with the
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 is more embarrassing to them
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

<t

true till death," and hopes for an equal
fidelity in return. There are many hints that
she is not quite sure of that fidelity : 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 certainly an indication there that
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 —

a

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 the Rubicon must have been
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 desires to be advised by him, is
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, or repeat her scraps of
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 replies 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 four and 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 is now too devout a man to be the
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 does 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 to say, was the only
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
R 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 lasted for five hours. Christina took part
in it with verve and entrain. " The spectators,"
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-purposes. The
players lost their tempers in the first encounter ;
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 life in Sweden,
practising them.
It is impossible to say which, if either,
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 Catholic pro-
pagandism 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 were taken
to spread it."
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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 her. 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, with 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
lived two 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 of welcome was sumptuous; and
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 lost beyond the hope
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 jMajesty has not sufficient
regard for me to alter his decision. Failing
that, I shall no longer be able to receive any
courtesies from 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
post-horses, like an ordinary, unofficial traveller.
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 him 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

CHAPTER XXIII
Back at Hamburg — Election of a new Pope — Christina
illuminates in honour of Clement ix. — Her windows
broken by the mob — The riot 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 it was business which detained
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 visitor came
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 was welcome ; but the illuminated
set-piece, — the tiara with the keys, and the
inscription : clemens ix. pont. 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 disturbance
was no business of his, and that he should not
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 official 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 prospect 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
his responsibility for order, and had the street
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 activity : the defiant
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
flegm 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 is one of her moods; but her moods
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 situation is not so simple as all that.
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 my presence 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 iro3 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, if permitted space, one might
make Polish history furnish 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
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potentate, from the Tsar of Russia to the Pope
of Rome, might bear a hand in it, " running " a
nominee, and bring both due and undue influence
to bear. Poniatowski was, it will be remembered,
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 which 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

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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
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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
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old to marry, had no inclination to do so,
and would, in consequence, leave no heirs,
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 always
wanted to be a Queen, provided that she might
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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 spinster, he also
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

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hang about Hamburg, a la recherche de la piece
de cent sous. She would be in a position to " do
something " for Catholicism, — perhaps even to
promote the cause of Catholicism 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. I was pleased to perceive your zeal
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 your mind to become a Pole, too, if I
am elected ; and, unless you are prepared to
do so, all your labours are in vain, for that is
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).
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
" I cannot say how much I am obliged 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
success was 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 Christina were to marry a sixth candidate
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 said to have
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
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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 without hearing
her complain 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 own life in her own way — Her patronage of 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
wrote 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 liberty of worship
for Catholics 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 her journey through the
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 that there be no actual
destitution, — depends upon the importance
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, — realised that not only the
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
responsibility which she had never really wanted,
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 justice governed the decision, the
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 it be said that Christina, having
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 matter 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 still found it
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 " (she then repeated) " forced
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 watches 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 all, is only an intermitt
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 first, as was natural during the
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 his nephews with these qualities.
There was no suggestion of miserliness 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

i/nern T_?nriJ-/Tna
¦/rom/ attainting /•>/ j/e/tulitxi.- .AJeurelcn

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 the men 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 Teachings out after the simple,
but cultivated, life, that we see Christina as
she would have wished posterity to see her ;
while her manner of bestowing benefits upon
the needy 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 less301

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
than you deserve and I should like 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 obliged 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 —

CI

How ridiculous " (she is at last able to
302

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
write) " is all this nonsense about Monaldeschi !
All Westphalia may believe him to have been
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 166° — 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 first event which summoned Christina from
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 urna1
Clemens ; pro Creta vertitur in cinerem."
Which is credible enough. The loss of Crete
may well have meant as much to Clement ix. as
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 line 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
less than 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 it under the walls of Vienna. From
April until October 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 his 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.1
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
1 The rule was made after an election which had lasted more
than two years.
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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
were 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 of the intrigues — 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 as dogs 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 influence induced you to
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.
312

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.

313

• ' 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 Court'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 ; and nothing in particular hap
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 religion; but the getting of her own
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- 315

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
tina's zeal for the discomfiture of the Heathen
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 explosions ;
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 one317

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. It was reasonable enough
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 for the criminal classes.
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
318

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 his 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

COURT 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
surrender 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, — f or 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 his neck and pulled it. 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 Easter Sunday, during
church time. Christina, coming out of church,
heard what had been done. She listened to the
320

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 police agents, accustomed to respect royal
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 call this doing justice ! 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 stamp 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, whereas, 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.
Whereupon, 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, if need were, to die in it, de
fending her with the last drop of blood in their
veins. Whereto she assented, declaring that
she feared God, but feared nothing else in
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

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It was his way of intimating that, while he
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
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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 in them with 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
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addressed the gibe which discovered in the
divine governance of the Church the excuse for
railing 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
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COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
of Christina that she was a woman and behaved
as such may, indeed, help us over some of the
stiles, as it has been made to do in the course of
this biography ; 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 as an unrepresentative woman, — one of
whom it could be said, in general, though not
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
after she had relieved herself of its responsibilities.
But one must not conclude that to say that is to
say all. It still remains 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 particularly clever,
or particularly wayward — and picture her in
Christina's place, doing exactly what Christina
did. Christina's individuality forbids.
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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 had
passed through many nerve-storms, sighing for
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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 self-consciousness, or else a total
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 ;
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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 ; but it prepares us for platitudes to follow.
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
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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. If they are in
cluded in her stock of wisdom, they do not
constitute the whole of it. If she does not
know better, at any 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 courage 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 is, at any rate, clear that her
hostility 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 love is not so much a merit
as a necessity. It is the touchstone which dis
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 theretc

" 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 own — 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 religion had something to do with her
decision, she was hardly to be called religious.
But she was human, and became more human
as the years passed over her head ; and the
living of her own life, according to her own
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 was a queer out
come of an illegitimate passion for a worldly
Prince of the Church, who had sworn vows of
v 337

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
chastity and continually violated them. But
queer things happen, ahke 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 light which they throw on Christina's
life — 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 the latter. But not always, — in this, as
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
level with 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." 339

COURT OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
That is in the tone of the tired cynic, dis
illusioned and disabused. 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 hopes and thoughts were gradually
fixed less and less on life, and more and more on
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, however
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 old, perhaps,
at the time of writing — of which these sentiments
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
happy, or be it terrible — that God will reveal
us to ourselves as we really are, and as we shall
have to be, throughout all eternity, in the sight
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
weening pride, with the vivacity of an excitable
temperament, with 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 the battle ; but one finds traces
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 glorious it is, and how delightful, to
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 vanity. We shall all pass like shadows. Life
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 ! "
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
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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— " If I were given the choice between old age
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 was 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 comfort
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 watched
beside her night and day, and was now to be the
executor of her will 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 had 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 welcome to
her. Those chains she hugged. She died hugging
them ; and therefore she died happy. They
had not confined her spirit, but had contributed
to its emancipation. 349

INDEX

Abo, Bishop of, 230.
Adami, relative of Azzolino, 242.
Alexander VII., Pope, and Chris
tina's private renunciation, 155 ;
orders Cardinal Colonna to
leave Rome, 166, 171 ; dis
satisfied with Christina's ex
planation of Monaldeschi's
death, 217.
Altieri, Cardinal, 312; elected Pope
Clement X., 313 ; death, 314.
Anne of Austria, 181, 182, 183,
214, 215.
Arckenholtz, Johann, 299, 300.
Azzolino, Cardinal, 169, 171, 174,
183, 184, 187, 193 ; return to
Christina, 217 ; his character
and relations with Christina,
219, 220, 221 ; composes a
Court for Christina, 237, 241,
243, 246 ; Christina's corre
spondence with, 248, 249, 250,
251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 260,
261, 262, 272, 274, 275, 276,
277 ; recommending Christina
for throne of Poland, 284, 285,
286, 287, 288, 289; 294, 308, 309,
310,311,312,316,317,335,349.
Baner, General, 44.
Barberini, the, 164.
Barine, Arvede, 1 50.
Beaulieu, Master of the Cere
monies, 126, 127.
Bildt, Baron de, 8, 54 ; Christine
de Suede et le Cardinal Azzo
lino, 172, 220.
Bochart, Dr., 43, 94 ; as Christina's
playfellow, 95, 100, 148.
Boeder, Prof., trouble with Swed
ish students, 92.
Boreel, Dutch Ambassador at
Paris, 154.

Borri, the alchemist, 235.
Bourdelot, Dr., Christina's French
physician, 97 ; quarrel with
Court physicians, 98 ; Master
of the Revels, 99 ; suggests
practical jokes on scholars, 100,
101 ; trouble with Magnus de
la Gardie, 102, 103 ; 130.
Brah6, Count, 141, 226.
Brah^, Ebba, 53, 56, 106.
Brahd, Tycho, 53.
Burnet, Bishop, 316.
Casati, Paul, 131, 134, 137.
Catherine, daughter of Charles IX.,
50.
Chanut, French Ambassador,
story of Christina, 13 ; 58 ; his
character sketch of Christina,
63; 75- 76, 85, 119, 123, 124,
125, 130, 209.
Chapelain, M., 179.
Charles Gustavus, afterwards
Charles x., 49, 56 ; succeeds
Christina, 137, 138, 139, 140,
141, 142, 144, 169 ; at the wars,
182, 223 ; news of his death,
224.
Charles I. of England, 17, 87.
Charles 11. of England, 56, 114,
159, 206.
Charles, Prince of Lorraine,candi-
date for the throne of Poland,
283.
Chigi, Cardinal, 260.
Christina, her passion for self-
development, 1 ; birth, 20 ;
regency, 25 ; childhood, 29 ;
education, 33 ; coronation, 43 ;
conclusion of the Thirty Years
War, 45 ; Court of Scholars,
46, 86 ; determination against
marriage, 48 ; sentimental char-
351

INDEX

Christina {continued) —
acteristics, 49 ; romance with
Charles Augustus, 50 ; suitors,
56 ; curiosity of French Court,
62 ; Chanut's character sketch,
63 ; Father Mannerscheid's
character sketch, 67 ; literature
and arts, 73, 74, 75 ; desire for
a salon, 74 ; invitation to
Descartes, 78, 79 ; practical
joke upon Saumaise, 88, 89 ;
her jest as teacher of glees, 89 ;
Dr. Bochart as playfellow, 95 ;
Bourdelot as French physician,
97 ; practical jokes on scholars
at his suggestion, 100 ; con
version to Roman Catholicism,
122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128,
129, 130,131, 132,133, 134; ab
dication, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139,
140, 141, 142, 143, 144 ; her de
parture, collections literary and
artistic, 146, 147 ; in male attire,
as the son of Count Dohna,
1 50 ; arrival at Hamburg, hos
pitality of Jewish banker, 151;
visit to Jesuits' College at
Munster, 151 ; Tott succeeded
in favour by Pimentelli, 154;
arrival at Brussels, forswears
Lutheranism, 155; private re
nunciation, 155, 156 ; received
publicly into Roman Church at
Innsbruck, way of life, 156 ;
leaves Brussels for Rome, 158,
1 59, 160 ; the Rubicon crossed,
162 ; Cardinal Colonna in love
with, 166 ; Farnese Palace part
ly dismantled, 167 ; dismissal of
Grand Equerry, Antonio della
Cueva, 168 ; money supply ir
regular, 169 ; departure for
Sweden through France, 170;
desire to become Queen of
Naples, 172; interview with
Mile de Montpensier, 174, 175 ;
reception in Paris, 176 ; meet
ing with Mazarin, Anne of Aus
tria, and Louis xiv. at Com
piegne, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182,
183, 184, 185 ; return to Italy,
186, 187 ; return to France, 189 ;
at Fontainebleau, 190 ; tragic
352

death of Monaldeschi, 191 ;
comments on the incident by
Gui Patin, 192, Mme de Motte
ville, 193, and Mile de Mont
pensier, 194 ; details of the
execution, 196, 197, 198, 199,
200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205 ;
attitude of the French Court,
206 ; refusal of Christina to
leave France in disgrace, 207 ;
her letters of justification for
Monaldeschi's murder, 208, 209,
210 ; proposal to visit Cromwell,
212, 213 ; second visit to Paris
"to see the King dance," 213 ;
leaves for Rome, 215 ; financial
difficulties, 216, 217, 221, 222,
223, 224 ; return to Sweden,
224, 225 ; unpleasant reception
there, 226, 227, 228 ; quarrel
with the Bishop of Abo, 230,
231 ; disgusted with Sweden,
repairs to Hamburg, 231, 232 ;
life at Hamburg — manifold pre
occupations, 233, 234 ; Borri
the alchemist's deception, 235 ;
converts Prof. Lambecius, 236 ;
returns to Rome, 236 ; her
Court, 237 ; attitude towards
Roman ladies, 238 ; questions
of etiquette, 239 ; in the role
of peacemaker, 240, 241 ; Swed
ish agents cheat her, 242 ; de
cides again to visit Sweden ;
rigorous Swedish conditions,
243 ; second sojourn to Ham
burg, 245, 246 ; fears of assassi
nation, 247, 248 ; her manner
of life — correspondence with
Azzolino, 248 ; fears that his
piety will prevent him being
her lover, 249, 250 ; a fancy
dress ball, 256 ; second expedi
tion to Sweden — letters to Az
zolino, 260, 261, 262, 263 ; mass
performed in defiance of law,
264 ; her priest ordered out
of the country, 266 ; she de
parts also to Hamburg, 268 ;
back at Hamburg — longing for
Rome and Azzolino, 270 ; elec
tion of a new Pope ; celebrations
and illuminations in honour of

INDEX

Christina {continued) —
Clement IX., 272 ; her windows
broken by the mob, 272, 273 ;
the vacant throne of Poland —
motives for preferring it, 280,
281 ; presumption that Azzolino
wishes to get rid of her, 280 ;
indifference to the result of the
election, 284, 285, 286, 287,
288 ; her candidature regarded
as ridiculous, 290 ; its failure,
291 ; returns to Rome, 293 ;
friendly relations with Pope
Clement, 293, 294, 295 ; golden
age of the Pontificate, 299 ; at
last lives her own life, 300 ;
patronage of Art — her Academy
— her benefactions, 302, 303 ;
death of Clement ix., 304, 305 ;
Conclave of 1667 — intrigues of
Christina and Azzolino to se
cure the election of a friend —
their failure, 308, 309, 310, 311,
312 ; love letter to Azzolino
dropped during Conclave, 311 ;
death of Clement X., succeeded
by Innocent xi., 314 ; Christina
quarrels with him, 315 ; her
zeal for the discomfiture of the
" Heathen Turk," the cause of
her pension being suppressed
by the Pope, 316 ; insistence
upon the right of asylum for
law-breakers in the precincts of
her Palace, 318, 319, 320, 321 ;
the Pope's commentary on her
conduct, 323, 324, 325 ; Chris
tina's last years — Bishop Bur
net's description of her, 326,
327 ; her Aphorisms — platitudes
commingled in them with
individual thoughts, 328, 329,
330, 331,332 ; Aphorisms about
love, religion, 333, 334, 335;
do the Aphorisms convey the
truth concerning her affection
for Azzolino? 335, 336, 337,
338 ; more Aphorisms, 339 ;
the light which they throw
on Christina's life, 340, 341 ;
her mysticism — indifference to
death, 342, 343, 344 ; extracts
from her later correspondence,
Z

345, 346 ; her last illness,
347 ; letter to Olivekrans, 348 ;
reconciliation with the Pope
— her death, 349.
Clement IX., Pope (formerly
Cardinal Rospigliosi), 272 ;
death, 304.
Clement x., Pope (formerly
Cardinal Altieri, 313; death,
314-
Colonna, Cardinal, in love with
Christina, 166.
Colonna, Princess, 300.
Comenius, J. A., 93.
Conde, Prince de, 97, 143, 148 ;
ranked next to Cromwell by
Christina, 153, 156; candidate
for the throne of Poland, 283,
296.
Conring, Hermann, 93.
Crescimbeni, G. M., 302.
Cromwell, Oliver, 14, 108, 109,
153 ; Christina's proposed visit
to, 212, 213.
Cueva, Antonio della, Grand
Equerry, dismissed, 168.
d'Auvrigny, Father, 148.
Davisson, secretary to Christina,
170.
Del Monte, Christina's Master
of Horse, 317, 345.
Denmark, peace concluded with,
45-
Denmark, Queen of, disguised as
servant-maid, 150.
Descartes, Rene, 62, 76, 77 ; philo
sopher required both by Chris
tina and Elizabeth, 78, 79; letter
to Elizabeth, 80, 81 ; Christina's
triumph, 81, 82 ; unpleasant
experiences, 84 ; death, 85, 88,
I3°, -[53 > Christina charged as
having killed him, 154.
Dohna, Count, 150.
Don John of Austria, sixth candi
date for the throne of Poland,
290.
Dudley, Sir Robert, 237.
Elizabeth, Princess Palatine of
Bohemia, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 ;
jealousy concerning Descartes,
353

INDEX

82, 1 53 ; his death, and letters
of Elizabeth, 85.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, 46.
English diplomatists, modern,
74-
Ferdinand, Emperor, 14.
Filicaia, Vincenzo da, 302.
Frederick of Hesse, 128, 129.
Fozio, Father, 252.
Gardie, Jacob de la, 45.
Gardie, Magnus de la, 53, 56, 61,
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 141,
247.
Gardie, Pontus de la, 263, 265,
266, 267, 268.
Gardiner, Prof., on the ruin caused
by the Thirty Years War, 11.
Gilbert, M., the reading of his
comedy, 179.
Glauber, the chemist, 271.
Guise, Due de, 174, 177.
Gustavus, Adolphus, 13 ; com
pared to Cromwell, 14 ; mar
riage, 18; death, 24; looted
German libraries, 73.
Heinsius, Daniel, 91.
Heinsius, Nicholas, 91, 92.
Henrietta Maria, Queen, 178.
Hesse, Landgrave of, entertains
Christina, 151.
Hesse-Homburg, Landgrave of,
293-
Holsteinius, Legate, 160, 161.
Huet, Peter Daniel, 90 ; intro
duced to Christina by Bochart,
94-
Innocent XL, 7, 314.
James 1. of England, 76.
Jebb, Sir Richard, 87.
John Casimir, King of Poland,
281, 282.
Johnson, Dr., 87.
Jusserand, M., 74.
Kleihe, Swedish noble, 293.
Lambecius, Prof., 236.
Landini, Capt. Francesco, 170.
354

Lascaris, Vice-Legate, 188, 193.
le Bel, Father, narrative of Mon
aldeschi's assassination, 199,
200, 201, 202, 203, 204.
le Bouts, Pere, 213.
Leibnitz, Baron G. W. von, 161.
Lena?us, Archbishop, 229.
Lenclos, Ninon de, 180, 181.
Leopold, Archduke, 160.
Libraries, German, looted by
Gustavus Adolphus, 73 ; Nico
las Heinsius, collector of
books for Christina, 92 ; Italians
complaining, 92 ; Naudseus,
librarian, 93 ; Vossius assisting
Christina to enlarge her library,
158.
Linde, son of Christina's old
nurse, 227.
Literature and Arts, 73, 74 ; Swed
ish scholars inadequate, 75.
Loccenius, 93.
Longland, letter to Thurloe on
Monaldeschi's death, 205.
Longueville, Mme de, 149.
Louis xiv., 181 ; refusal to visit
Christina after Monaldeschi's
death, 206, 282.
Macedo, Father, 130, 131.
Malines, Francesco, 131, 170.
Mancini, Marie de, 184.
Mannerschied, Father, character
sketch of Christina, 67.
Maria, Princess, 50.
Marie-Eleonore of Brandenburg,
marriage to Gustavus, 18 ; char
acter, 25 ; morbidity of living,
29 ; leaves Sweden, 38 ; 102,
140, 142.
"Marshal of the Boors," 138,
139-
Marston Moor, battle of, 17.
Mary, Princess of Orange, acute
tale of poverty, 178.
Mazarin, Cardinal, 158, 170, 173,
182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188,
189, 190, 209, 210, 211, 215.
Medonius, 148.
Meibom, 93 ; victim of Bour
delot's pleasantry, 100.
Menage, Piller, wit and man of
letters, 178, 179.

INDEX

Milton, John, 87.
Modena, the Duke of, 172, 215.
Molinos, Miguel, the "Quietist,"
318.
Monaldeschi, Grand Equerry to
Christina, 168, 170, 189; tragic
death, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 ;
his alleged treason, 196, 197,
198, 199, 200, 201 ; details of
his assassination, 202, 203, 204,
205, 206, 207.
Montpensier, Mile de, 174, 175,
180, 185, 194.
Motteville, Mme de, 54, 61, 180,
181, 182.
Musset, Alfred de, 3.
Naudaeus, librarian, 93 ; victim
of Bourdelot's pleasantry, 100.
Neuburg, Duke of, candidate for
the throne of Poland, 283.
Odescalchi, Cardinal — Pope Inno
cent XL, 314.
Olivekrans, Christina's Governor-
General, 348.
Oxenstiern, Chancellor, 17, 25 ;
removes Christina from her
mother, 33 ; statesmanship, 40 ;
Christina's tutor, 41, 45, 56, 61,
136.
Patin, Gui, 205, 211.
Patru, Olivier, 177.
Peace with Denmark concluded,
45 ; Thirty Years War, 45.
Philip IV. of Spain as suitor,
56.
Pimentelli, Spanish Ambassador,
154, 155, 159 ; coach plundered,
167, 173.
Poniatowski, Prince, nominee of
Catherine the Great for the
throne of Poland, 281.
Posnania, Bishop of, 290.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 17, 41, 61.
Rodd, Sir Rennell, 74.
Ross, Adrian, 84.
Russia, Mission from, 26.
Saint-Pol, Comte de, 295.
Salmasius, see Saumaise, C. de.

Salon, Christina's desire for, 74.
Santinelli, Francesco, 168, 170,
189; assassin of Monaldeschi,
191, 196, 198, 199 ; Christina's
justification of, 208, 209 ; pawns
uniforms of Swiss Guard, 216 ;
robbery and rascalities, 221,
222.
Santinelli, Ludovico, 168, 170.
Saumaise, C. de, 86, 87 ; Chris
tina's practical joke, 88, 89, 90 ;
nominates Bourdelot, 98.
Schlippenbach, Count, 104, 105.
Schoeffler, 93.
Scholars, Christina's Court of, 46,
86.
Scudery, Mile de, 346.
Sobieski, John, 222, 305.
Socrates, 58.
Sparre, Mile Ebba, 88, 89, 156,
165.
Spencer, Herbert, 84.
Steinberg, Christina's Equerry,
104.
Stiernhielm, introduces burning-
glasses and microscopes, 93.
Sweden, position of, among the
Powers, 10.
Tacitus, 65.
Terlon, French Ambassador, 263.
Texeira, the Jew, 242, 294.
Thiene, Count Annibale, 170.
Thirty Years War, 10; conclusion,
45-
Thurloe, John, 205.
Tilly, General, 15.
Torstensen, General, 45.
Tott, Grave, 112; proposed by
Christina as successor to Charles
Gustavus, 138, 154; Swedish
Ambassador in Paris, 242.
Vidoni, Cardinal, 309, 310.
Virgil, 65 ; copy left by Christina
in church at Hamburg, 151.
Vossius, 89 ; subsequently Dean
of Windsor, 90, 94; further
opportunities to steal Christina's
books, 158.
Wasenau, Count, 345.
Weimar, Bernard of, 16.
355

INDEX

Westphalia, Treaty of, 45.
Whitelocke, Sir Bulstrode, British
Ambassador, 54, 106, 107, 108,
109,110, 111,112, 113, 114, 115,
116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 138,
?39, 153-
Wiesnowiecki — Prince Michel

Korybut — seventh candidate
for the throne of Poland, 290.
Wrangel, Countess, 258.
Wrangel, Lord High Constable,
257, 258, 262, 293.
Zucchi, Father, 252.

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