Source:
Christina of Sweden, pages 26 to 29, by Ada Harrison, 1929
The biography:
Christina's character at this time is admirably illustrated in her private correspondence. She was a good and vigorous writer, not so literary as to obscure herself in her letters, and letter-writing was a welcome outlet for her semi-creative mind. She wrote a comic account of how she fell into the sea from a cracked plank in company with an octogenarian admiral who was showing her over a battleship. She wrote to Chanut, the French Ambassador, declaring her hatred of matrimony and swearing that what she would bear in marriage would be no Augustus but a Nero. In 1646 [sic], the queen's mother, sickening of her nonentity's existence, entered into negotiations with her late enemy, Christian of Denmark, pretending that she was in a position to offer Christina's hand for his son. A little later [sic], to the indignation of Sweden, she allowed herself to be fetched away to Denmark on a Danish warship. A witty lady of Christina's court wrote a burlesque account of the incident, describing it as an elopement, and to her letter Christina, quite untouched by any feeling in the matter, added a postscript to the effect that we should do as we please, 'for philosophy and nature are the surest guides and should be reverenced.'
She wrote to Anne of Austria, requiring her to release from prison Condé, Conti and Longueville, with the marvellous directness and indiscretion which was later to characterise her offers of advice to persons in high places. With almost ingenuous impertinence she wrote to the Duchess of Chatillon recommending her to take Condé for a lover, 'or in a little while you will find yourself sorrowfully reduced to the Duke of Chatillon, that is to Zero.' In the same mannish spirit in which she delighted to use oaths and act the unblushing virgin, she wrote a description of the Duc de Nemours mistaking bedrooms in the course of a gallant intrigue.
In a very different spirit, however, she began a correspondence with the philosopher Descartes. Enthusiasms came and went with Christina, but it was her steady desire all her life to play the patron of art and learning. She recognised the importance of Descartes and began to consider how incomparable an appanage he would be to her court. He was at this time living in Holland, warm and comfortable, and proceeding admirably with his work. He had already one royal patroness, Elizabeth Princess Palatine, daughter of that Elizabeth, child of James the First, through whom the Hanoverians came to England. She was a charming and intelligent princess, living in exile in Holland, and drawing great solace from the friendship and teaching of Descartes.
Christina had an approach to the philosopher through Chanut, their mutual friend. Chanut reported the queen's interest. Descartes replied in a tactful letter, obviously intended for the queen's eye, that since his work was being attacked by fools it was well to have it patronised by people of the highest rank and intelligence. He had, as a rule, an aversion to writing on morale, but he put this aside for the queen's sake and wrote her a dissertation on le souverain bien. When after a long interval Christina replied, it was with an invitation to the philosopher to take up his residence at Stockholm. Descartes demurred. He was honoured; he became fired with a scheme to bring about a rapprochement between his two royal patronesses; but he was comfortable in Holland and attached to the Princess Elizabeth. He wrote, Christina's flowery humble servant, and refused. But, characteristically, the queen's desire grew more urgent as it waited gratification. At last Descartes felt obliged to yield. Urging on the Princess Elizabeth, who seemed slow to understand it, the charm and strength their intercourse would gain through having a third person to share it, he set out for Stockholm with some misgivings in the autumn of 1649.
Christina rushed upon her prize. He was at once to draw up plans for a Swedish Academy, a work quite foreign to his experience and desire, and he was to have the honour of meeting her every morning in the royal library at five. Descartes shivered and complied, and wrote back a glowing account to Elizabeth of the queen's wit, her graces and her condescension in remembering Elizabeth herself. This provoked a somewhat double-edged letter from the gentle Princess, who vowed that she was not jealous, that it was good of the queen to remember her, which she did doubtless owing to the representations of Descartes, and that she was glad his enthusiasm had not decided him to live in Sweden, so that she might have her desire of seeing him again. But her wish was not fulfilled. By the middle of February 1650 Descartes was dead. The icy northern winter, the change from Holland, where he lived in a house 'like a stove', to the rigours of the queen's régime, were too much for him. He took cold, which developed into inflammation of the lungs and killed him.
The sacrifice of Descartes, for whose death she was in a measure responsible, was characteristic of Christina. She had the wit to appreciate the great man; she had, more remarkable, the brain to understand him; but she could not leave him alone. Her egoism required that he should shine upon the world through her. She was betrayed by her powers into the belief that she was the sun and centre of existence, and Descartes, like many another, was forced to subscribe to it.
None the less, Christina regretted the philosopher bitterly. A note of something like humility can be heard in her tribute to him. 'The greatest of philosophers and the most virtuous of men has just died. If I were superstitious I should weep his death like a child, and would bitterly repent having drawn this bright star out of its course. ... His loss weighs me down. It rouses unendingly my just and useless regrets.' She wished to do the scholar honour by piling a splendid monument upon him and laying him at the feet of the Swedish Kings; but this his friends would not allow, and he was buried simply in the Catholic cemetery at Stockholm. Descartes' visit, so disastrous and so brief, may yet have been long enough to plant a seed in Christina, or cause one already planted there to grow. Descartes, Christina realised, was one of the first men of the age; he was French, he was a Roman Catholic. He was a mighty link in the chain of the Latin genius that was forever dragging at the queen.
Above: Kristina.
Above: René Descartes.
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