Source:
Christina of Sweden, pages 58 to 63, by Ada Harrison, 1929
The biography:
The plague was still at Rome, and Christina stayed at Pesaro. In the provincial dullness her scheme for the conquest of Naples flowered again. So ripe did it grow that she returned to France to prosecute it, and we hear of one of her gentlemen providing new uniforms for the household, so that it should not disgrace her in her new position. The uniforms were expensive and tasteful, in grey and purple, with various details of decoration. When, however, it was discovered that the number of men-at-arms who were to bear them was about forty, and that no support was to be dreamed of from Mazarin to assist them in the taking of Naples, the project halted. Comically impracticable as it had been from its inception, it dragged on for years, and when in the end it was abandoned, it was succeeded for Christina by a Near Eastern scheme, which answered equally well as an occupation and was never in any great danger of accomplishment.
It was while Christina was at Fontainebleau, awaiting an invitation to the French court which was slow in coming, that her chamberlain Monaldeschi was murdered. This peculiar and horrible incident roused at the time, and subsequently, a storm of shocked enquiry about Christina. She had always been a nine days' wonder. She now seemed a nine days' wonder with a savage taste for blood. Every historian interprets the incident according to his particular view of the queen's character. It was to one the culminating eccentric violence of a violent and eccentric nature. Another sees in it the action of an ailing woman brought to a pitch of nervous irritability. To a third it was a crime of passion committed by a woman who had turned upon her lover.
As the true facts remain unknown, the true interpretation must do likewise. Monaldeschi was a member of the lesser Italian nobility who had worked himself into the queen's confidence and been, as usual, wildly rewarded. If she took all her gentlemen for lovers, as scandal said, then he was the queen's lover; but this is unlikely. He was certainly an adventurer enjoying much power, and enjoying it, as was inevitable, precariously. It is not so much the murder itself, or as Christina would have said, the execution, that was startling. Surrounded by frauds and impostors as she was, it was no wonder that she should react against some of them as suddenly and violently as she had originally taken them up. It is the manner of the execution that so uneasily stirs the imagination.
As far as can be learnt[,] the whole affair was the result of a falling-out of thieves. At this time Monaldeschi and the two Santinellis were dividing the queen's confidence. Monaldeschi was Christina's chamberlain[,] and Ludovico Santinelli was her captain of the guard. Francesco Santinelli had been despatched from France to Rome to take the queen's diamonds out of pawn. Being a knave[,] he immediately pledged them and took the money. This news reached Monaldeschi's ears. The chamberlain was anxious, from jealous motives, to expose Santinelli. He was unwilling, however, to do it straightforwardly with the evidence at his command. A richer and fuller opportunity suggested itself. He therefore set to work and laid a long and torturous train against his rival, forging letters and evidence, involving himself in a mass of underhand business. He was working in Christina's palace, and knowledge of his activities came to her ears. Having once suspected him, she set herself to mark him step for step, tracking him as he was tracking Santinelli. When all the evidence seemed ready[,] she called him before her, and in the presence of the other Santinelli and a Jesuit father asked him what was fit punishment for the man who betrayed her secret confidence. Condemning himself out of his own mouth, Monaldeschi replied, 'the vilest death.' Then Christina turned upon him and broke it to him in a flash that he was not the instrument[,] but the victim of justice. The priest was to confess him and Santinelli immediately to carry out the sentence.
A horrible scene ensued. The condemned man flung himself in an agony before the queen. His supplication was terrible, but Christina remained unmoved. She ordered the priest and the executioner to do their duty, and withdrew. Twice the Jesuit father followed her to beg mercy. Once even Santinelli went to implore her to consider again. She simply told him to bring her word when Monaldeschi was dead. At last Santinelli drew up his guard and bade the victim prepare. But a further horror was added. Monaldeschi, warned by some premonition, had put on a shirt of mail under his coat. To kill him[,] the guard had to fight him up and down the long gallery where the scene had taken place. Covered with wounds[,] he fell at last, and died, having endured in his last hours the whole range of physical and mental torture.
Christina received the news of his death with satisfaction. The brutality of her conduct is impossible to explain. That she should imagine herself able, with her royal prerogative, to order an execution, is conceivable; but that she, a woman, should remain almost within earshot of its being bloodily enacted, and then affect to rejoice, puts her in a light too savage for her nature. The only explanation is that there must have been stuff in Monaldeschi's investigations, which, once disclosed, would have struck her terribly near. She must have been either horribly afraid, or, more likely, for she was no coward, she must have been threatened beyond redemption in that self-esteem which was her mania.
The murder, committed by a guest on French soil, was bitterly condemned in France. Mazarin, in an attempt to smooth things over, advised the queen to disown it, but this Christina, with her own perverse courage, obstinately refused to do. The terms of her refusal, as was usual with her, improved on courage:
'Understand this, all of you, valets and masters, small and great, that it was my pleasure to act thus, and that I must not and do not give account of my actions to anybody. Prince Condé did well to write of you, "This old fox who has taken in God and the devil." Believe me, Jules, you had better conduct yourself in a manner pleasing to me. ...'
Contrary to appearances[,] there was none of the braggadocio of fear in this letter to the most powerful man in France. It was simply Christina's normal reaction to an inferior who had attempted to give her advice. In her own remarkable fashion she continued insensible of having committed any enormity, and no more than a month after Monaldeschi's death, she was requesting Mazarin to find a duchy for Francesco Santinelli.
Louis XIV, to show his disapproval, kept the queen waiting at Fontainebleau five months for an invitation to Paris. In her enforced idleness, Christina thought again enthusiastically of Cromwell. For a second time she proposed a visit to England, but found her offers once more politely ignored by the Protector. When at last the invitation came for her to join the French court, she hurried with undiminished confidence to the capital. Her most striking success this time was with the scholars of the Academy, who admired her wit and learning and felt no close interest in the fate of Monaldeschi. The rest of Paris continued to dwell upon it, but Christina refused to be under a cloud.
No royal apartments being offered, she lodged in Mazarin's section of the Louvre, and went constantly to the play, attended only by gentlemen, and calling the first coach that came to hand. She watched Louis XIV dance in one of those miraculous ballets which the Cardinal encouraged to keep the King's mind off State affairs, and being invited to supper afterwards, kept her royal host waiting. At this supper she met the young Marquise de Castellane, called La Belle Provençale. She was immensely struck with her beauty, and spared no pains to enjoy her society. This unusual attention gave rise to the rumour that Christina felt an immoderate passion for the young Marquise, the same as she had been suspected of feeling for Ebba Sparre, her single woman friend in Sweden, and for the Comtesse de Suze, who inspired a wit to the following verses:
'Belle et charmante Comtesse,
Une généreuse princesse
Dit que vous l'avez su charmer;
Christine l'avoue elle-même.
Puisque votre sexe vous aime,
Le mien a droit aussi de vous aimer.'
She stayed on in Paris through Carnival, having all the fun of the fair, and continually offering herself as a spectacle to the crowd. At last she moved off south for Lent, having caused Anne of Austria to declare that if Christina did not go, she must. None of her hosts, except perhaps Mazarin, had any patience left for her, and Christina, in her turn, was beginning to find the French light. The O Cato, O Cicero strain revived in her letters. Of Paris too she was obliged to write: 'Where are the men?'
Above: Kristina.
_-_Gothenburg_Museum_of_Art_-_GKM_0066.tif.jpg)
Above: Kristina condemns Monaldeschi to die, painted by Johan Fredrik Höckert.
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