Source:
Christina of Sweden, pages 54 to 58, by Ada Harrison, 1929
The biography:
In connection with her academy Christina gave an instance of that wrong-headedness about her favourites which she exhibited so often in her life. The constitution laid down that no men of sufficient virtue or learning were to be excluded on account of their positions. The corollary, that position was not to compensate for the necessary qualities, might fairly have been assumed. Christina, so rational in impersonal matters, insisted none the less on admitting the brothers Santinelli, now raised to the highest positions in her household, as well as her new chamberlain, Count Monaldeschi, who was sharing with them her esteem.
The queen had a fatal predilection for this trio of Italian adventurers. They were between them in command of her household, and she had not been in Rome many months before they had reduced it to confusion. A very short trial was sufficient to prove Christina the worst housekeeper in history. She was wildly extravagant and unpractical with money, and she chose dishonest servants. On her arrival she felt with joy that the Farnese Palace was her spiritual home, but she had not the faintest idea how to live in it. We hear as an example of her astonishing and uncomfortable habits that she slept in a fresh room every night. The palace resident, who had prepared everything for her reception, was at once confronted with vast schemes for architectural and decorative alterations. The queen respected none of his arrangements, and her servants respected nothing in heaven or earth. The Palace, outwardly the magnificent residence of an art-loving foreigner, became inwardly a riot of squalor and mismanagement. Even for a good manager funds would have been short. Now money was squandered, and money was lacking everywhere. Christina waited for her pension[,] and the servants waited for their wages. The queen pawned her diamonds, and her servants pawned whatever valuables of hers they could lay hands on. Furniture was burnt for firewood, and hangings and upholstery sold to the rag-shop. Sconces were torn out of walls and embroideries ripped up for their gold and silver thread. It was a wholesale plunder to which the queen's trusted favourites lent the readiest hands.
No more than six months' residence in Italy had brought Christina to this pass. Unwilling, naturally, to see where the fault lay, she tried to relieve her situation by importuning the King of Sweden for money. She had been demanding money ever since she had left the country, and the non-payment of her dues caused her acute anxiety. She was haunted by the fear that the Swedes would make her change of faith a pretext to release themselves from their pledges. She now considered going herself to Sweden to discover whether the alleged empty treasury was really the cause of her lack of funds, and was helped to a departure by the fact that the plague was at Naples and was threatening Rome.
On her way she was to visit France. The visit to France, like the entry to Rome, was the realisation of a dream. It was a great moment for Christina, and one which responded passably to her expectations. She entered Paris, as she had entered Rome, riding on a white horse, but this time, as there was no solemnity in the occasion, she allowed herself a scarlet dress with gold and silver trimmings. Paris gave her a gorgeous welcome, and Christina, as usual, partook of the entire feast of pleasures. Her visit was short enough to be an unbounded success; although it was long enough to provoke from Madame de Motteville the apprehensive compliment that 'she gained all hearts, which she perhaps would have quickly lost had she remained there longer', a painfully true comment upon Christina, whose misfortune it was, wherever she rested, to outstay her welcome. A detailed and interesting description of Christina on her first visit to Paris has been left by Mlle de Montpensier.
'I had heard so much of her whimsical manner of dressing', she wrote, 'that I was terrified to death that I should laugh when I saw her. ... She surprised me, but not in a manner to excite laughter. Her dress was a grey petticoat trimmed with gold and silver lace, a flame-coloured jacket, trimmed in the same taste; a Geneva point handkerchief tied with a flame-coloured ribband; a flaxen wig, turned in a puff behind as the ladies wear their hair, and a hat with a black feather on her head. Her complexion is fair; her eyes blue; sometimes there is a sweetness in them; at other times they are fierce and disdainful; her mouth, though wide, is pleasing enough; her teeth fine, her nose large and aquiline. She is remarkably short, and her jacket conceals the defects of her shape. On the whole I should have taken her for a joli petit garçon. When the ball was ended, we went to the play; there she astonished me indeed! for in commending such passages as pleased her, she swore by her Maker, laid herself along the seat, tossing her legs from one side to the other, even over the arms of the chair, repeating those verses she liked the best. She talked upon a variety of subjects, and her conversation had an agreeable turn. ... She vowed the strongest inclination she had was to see a battle, and that she would never rest till it was gratified; that of all men she envied the Prince de Condé his exploits, adding, "He is your good friend?" I answered, "Yes, Madam, and my very near relation." "He is the greatest hero of the age", she said. "His enemies cannot rob him of that character!"'
After Paris, Christina hurried to the court, which was at Compiègne. It was the wonderfully elegant and frivolous court of the young Louis XIV, and the visitor, with her oaths and antics, caused a sensation. 'The King's officers constantly attended her', wrote a witness, 'destitute of female attendants, state officers, equipages and money, herself alone composed her court.' Her dress and bearing were a positive shock to Anne of Austria, but though she swore, observed no rules of etiquette and was often dirty, she was witty, spoke eight languages, including French as good as if she had been born in Paris, and never committed the fatal offence of boring her hosts. Christina participated at last in the airy French life of her dreams, and made the acquaintance of people she had long known by correspondence. She gave it all, as usual, her keen attention, and in a letter from France she described the court with the acumen she could always bring to bear upon subjects which did not concern herself. There was the young king himself, gentle, pious, quiet, scarcely recognisable as the future Roi Soleil, in love with La Mancini, Mazarin's neice [sic], but so virtuously that 'I doubt whether in three years he has dared touch the tip of her finger.' Mazarin was too clever to make her queen of France, because 'he knows that marriage is the sovereign remedy against love ... and I do not think he would put his fortune to so dangerous a proof.' The cardinal himself, quietly ruling France, 'professes to be an honest man, and sometimes counterfeits it pretty well. ... He does not love the King, who adores him.'
It was in conversation with Mazarin that Christina, temporarily out of employment, promulgated a new lifework. This was that she should conquer Naples, assume the crown for herself, and name a French successor. Mazarin listened suavely, as was his habit. Had the scheme belonged to anybody else, Christina would have known in an instant what his attention was worth. Since it was her own, she continued to take fire from it. She quitted France with her head full of southern visions. Her hosts were not sorry to see her go. Madame de Motteville's mot was on the verge of being substantiated, and the visit fizzled out without any lively expression of regret. On her way home Christina paid a call on Ninon de Lenclos, and finding her more agreeable than the rest of her sex, she was so good as to write to Mazarin that a course of the famous lady's society would be an ideal thing for completing the education of the young King.
She interrupted her journey again at Turin, where occurred one of those unfortunate deadlocks that were becoming regular incidents on her path. The Duchess Christine of France was also in residence. It was assumed that the royal ladies would meet, but an insurmountable difficulty presented itself in the question of who should call first. The matter seemed to defy settlement, until Christina had the notion of feigning illness. Thus, bringing all her ingenuity to bear, the student of Plato and the Koran solved the situation by retiring to bed, where the Duchess was able to wait upon her without a particle of dignity being sacrificed on either side.
Above: Kristina.
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