Source:
Monarchs Retired from Business, volume 2, pages 275 to 284, by Dr. John Doran, 1857 (1902 edition)
The account:
Some contemporary writers described the morals of the ex-Queen as not being according to her Christian profession, and licentiousness was laid to her charge, without being more satisfactorily answered than by complaint of the publication. This, however, did not affect the splendour and gaiety of her Court, or render her saloons less crowded by poets who berhymed her, artists who limned her, philosophers who received instruction from her, and scholars like Kircher, who were brim-full and overpouring, not only with valuable knowledge, but with matters that had been mastered by the painful application of years, and which were not worth the trouble even of remembering.
For a time, her wonderfully magnificent career was interrupted by a common want — the want of money. France was at war with Sweden, and her income was more irregularly paid than ever. In 1679, she brought an account against her country of some millions of dollars. The Swedish Government had then obtained peace, but it disregarded Christina's bill. Funds, however, were now regularly forwarded to her, and with these she resumed a new career of extravagant splendour, that did not cease for a lengthened period. It was a period, however, when she was taxed with believing in astrology, was accused of being addicted to Quietism, when she exhibited much piety, — in her letters, concerned herself greatly in the public affairs of Sweden, and carried on a correspondence (in several languages) remarkable for the strength of mind, ability, and amiability which adorn her share of it. Her letters are further distinguished by their liberality of sentiment, — a liberality which she was never afraid to express, and which, in unison with kindred qualities, gave such offence to the new Pope, Innocent XI., that he deprived her of the annuity of twelve thousand crowns hitherto allowed her from the Papal treasury. Her answer to this petty proceeding was marked by a dignity and good sense which Innocent himself did not possess, and could not appreciate.
Her popularity with the common people of Rome was unbounded. A poor vendor of brandy, who had offended the law, had taken sanctuary in her stables, from which he was dragged by force. The indignation of Christina, at hearing this, was irrepressible. By her orders, the prisoner was rescued from the terrified officers who had him in custody, and who humbly begged for their own lives. He was brought back in triumph. "I am the daughter of the great Gustavus, yet!" murmured Christina; and when she went abroad, her presence was greeted with acclamations of "Long live the Queen!" "Yes", said Christina to those around her, "if he is Pope, I will make him remember that I am a Queen!"
"Everything trembles here, except myself", is a phrase which concludes one of her letters, written in 1688; and the year preceding, she wrote to Mlle. de Scudery; "I have preserved all my good and bad qualities; they are as lively as ever. I am still, in spite of flattery, as little satisfied with my person as ever I was. I have no envy against those who possess fortune, vast dominions, or treasures. My sole desire is to raise myself above other mortals, by merit and virtue; — and therefore it is that I am dissatisfied with myself. ... I have naturally a great aversion for old-age; and I do not know how I shall accustom myself to it. If I might choose between old-age and death, I think I should prefer the latter. But since I have not been consulted in that matter, I accustom myself to live, with pleasure; and although Death approaches, and is necessarily inevitable, I am not disquieted."
She lived to see the downfall of James II., a catastrophe which she had long foretold, and her sagacity enabled her further to prophesy that the union of England and Holland would be fatal to the King of France. "Remember, I have said it", is her addition to this prophecy.
Christina, however, was the subject of the predictions of others. Towards the close of 1688, she received an anonymous letter, which announced to her that her death was at hand, that she would do well to set her house in order, and that she could not make a better commencement than by condemning to destruction the indecent paintings and statues with which her mansion was crowded. The sexagenarian lady, who had a taste for such furniture, smiled, and put the anonymous letter in the fire.
Soon after, she suddenly became dangerously ill; and almost as suddenly, was convalescent. Her recovery fired Rome with a wild delight; but the joy was, again suddenly, turned into mourning. Early in April, 1689, her situation became so perilous that she sent for Albani (afterwards Clement XI.) requesting him to obtain the pardon of the Pope for all the sharp things she had uttered against him. The Pontiff, infirm as he was, could not repair to her bedside, but he forwarded to her, by his nephew, the Apostolic benediction.
She read and signed her will, and listened with great attention to the exhortations addressed to her, in Latin, French, and Italian, by the Bohemian Father Slawata. She had been suffering for some days, from a violent attack of erysipelas, which ultimately fell upon the lungs. On the 19th of April, she had fulfilled all the offices required by the Church, and was lying on her bed, surrounded by her little Court, and a numerous company of priests. As noon commenced striking, she turned on her right side, placed her left-hand under her neck, and as the iron tongue told the last of the twelve, the daughter of the great Gustavus, the murderess of Monaldeschi, was calmly sleeping the sleep of death.
Christina was entombed in a robe of gold brocade, the ground white, — which she had ordered, a year before, expressly for this purpose. Her funeral rites astonished Rome by their extraordinary splendour. Her will directed twenty thousand Masses to be said for the repose of her soul, and funds were bequeathed for a Mass to be celebrated daily, for ever, for the same purpose. Directions were given that the words "Christina lived sixty-eight [sic] years", and no other, should be her epitaph; — directions that were not obeyed. Various legacies are enumerated, after which Cardinal Azzolini is named residuary legatee, — as a mark of her affection, esteem, and gratitude, for services rendered during many years. To the wide protection of the Pope, Emperor, the Kings of Sweden, Spain, and France, she consigns her servants[,] "particularly my poor ladies."
The testamentary document profited very few, and was a calamity to the heir of the residuary legatee, — the Cardinal having died two months after the decease of Christina. Her books and medals were purchased at the lowest prices, and were added to the respective collections already in Rome. Her pictures were secured by the Duke of Orléans, and transported to the Palais Royal, at Paris.
Such was the end of an unsceptred Queen, who is still a riddle to those who read her history. Rome claims her abdication as the result entirely of her zeal for true religion; but as her after-conduct was unmarked by any symptoms, not to say proofs, of her being lifted heavenward, or of any exemplary change of life, religious zeal cannot be admitted as influencing her to resign the crown. Her eccentricity of character, her caprice, waywardness, and restlessness, may be urged as causes which led to an effect, — of which[,] if she did not openly repent, it was only because Sweden never encouraged her to look to the re-occupation of the throne as a possible circumstance.
Christina was the last of three Christian Queens who died at Rome since Rome itself had been confided to a Christian rule. The first was Catherine, Queen of Bosnia, deprived by the Turks of her crown and consort, in 1463. She took refuge in Rome, and died there in 1478. The second was Charlotte, Queen of Cyprus, graciously received by Sixtus IV.; she died at Rome in 1487. Christina was the third; and these volumes will show that she was not the last uncrowned Queen who found a refuge and a grave within the ancient city.
Christina of Sweden (according to a correspondent of 'Notes and Queries') had quite a mania for writing in her books. In the library of the Roman College there are several books annotated by her, — amongst others a Quintus Curtius, in which she criticizes very freely the conduct of Alexander: — "He reasons falsely on this case", she writes on one page; and elsewhere, "I should have acted diametrically opposite;" "I should have pardoned;" and again, further on, "I should have exercised clemency", — an assertion, however, we may be permitted to doubt, when we consider what sort of clemency was exercised towards Monaldeschi. Upon the fly-leaf of a Seneca (Elzevir) she has written, "Adversus virtutem possunt calamitates, damna et injuriæ, quod adversus solem nebulæ possunt." The library of the Convent of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem, in Rome, possesses a copy of the 'Bibliotheca Hispanica', in which the same princess has written, on the subject of a book relating to her own conversion, "Chi l'ha scritta non lo sa; chi lo sa non l'ha mai scritta."
Her leisure, such as it was, was often devoted to literary pursuits. The most remarkable of the works resulting from her leisure is a collection of twelve hundred maxims. Of these the following are samples. If they do not equal the quality of La Bruyère, they are still not without merit.
"Grandeur is like perfume, of which those who wear them are the least conscious.
"They who know the duty of a Prince will be the last to envy him.
"Contempt is the noble vengeance of a great heart.
"It is through sympathies and antipathies that reason loses its rights.
"The secret of being ridiculous, is by priding yourself on talents which you do not possess.
"Avarice of time is the only avarice which does not dishonour.
"Sciences are often the pompous titles of human ignorance; one is not the more knowing, for knowing them.
"Great men and fools are sometimes the same things, only in different ways.
"The oracle which recommended consultation of the dead, doubtless meant books.
"Princes resemble those tigers and lions, whose keepers make them play a thousand tricks and turns. To look at them you would fancy they were in complete subjection; but a blow from the paw, when least expected, shows that you can never tame that sort of animal.
"Change of ministry, change of thieves.
"Men do not strip themselves of ambition but when they strip themselves of their skins.
"We should believe nothing till we have first doubted of it.
"To be so far master of the tongue and face that they shall never betray the secrets of the heart, is an accomplishment by no means to be neglected.
"We should die inconsolable but for growing old.
"We are always children, only changing our toys and dolls.
"The dead are the first to forget the living; they have that great advantage over us.
"Don't think you are innocent because you are ignorant.
"The best cosmetic is 'good fortune and good health.'
"Silence is an excellent thing for clever men — and fools.
"Ceremonies have the effect of snuff; and they are amusing, into the bargain.
"Brave men and cowards are equally afraid, but they are not equally masters of their fear.
"They who fear war will have no long enjoyment of peace.
"The sciences make wise men wiser, and fools greater fools than before.
"If animals could speak, they would convince men that the latter were as great beasts as themselves.
"There are peasants born with royal souls, and kings with the souls of flunkeys.
"Virtues have their fashions, like garments.
"Long life is only a long waiting for death."
The following maxims are from among the last which she wrote: —
"Conscience is the only looking-glass which neither deceives nor flatters. It makes us feel as well as see everything.
"We must remember our past errors, as pilots mark the shoals on which they have been shipwrecked, that they may avoid future peril.
"Self-love is not so criminal as it is said to be. How should we not love ourselves? God wills that we should love ourselves, since He commands us to love Him more than we do ourselves, and our neighbour as much as we do ourselves.
"Life is like an enchanting symphony, which is beautiful, but not enduring.
"Flattery is not so dangerous as it is believed to be. Instead of inducing vanity, it shames them to whom is offered an incense which they do not deserve. Flattery often stirs men to deserve the praise to which they have not yet any claim.
"They who call youth a fever are perhaps right; nevertheless it is a fever I could willingly suffer from all my life, even though it should make me delirious.
"He who would speak well must speak little.
"All ages and all countries produce great men, and even heroes; but fortune and opportunity are often wanting to make them known.
"The animal which of all animals is the most foolish, and yet the vainest, is the pendant.
"Life is a matter of business; it is impossible to realize great profit in it without exposing yourself to as great loss.
"There are Princes whom men compare with Alexander the Great, and who are not worthy of being compared with his horse, Bucephalus.
"Our passions are the salt of life; happiness and unhappiness depend upon the degree with which we do them violence.
"Discretion is a virtue which should season all other virtues.
"Liberality would be the finest of all the virtues, if it did not destroy itself.
"We are almost always children; we change our amusements and dolls as we change our years. Everything is proportioned, by degrees, to our capacity; but after all, we are only busy with toys. Each age sneers at the toys of the preceding age, though its own be no more dignified toys than those which excite its ridicule.
"Absence does not destroy genuine love. Time, which destroys most things, is unequal to that alone.
"Satire ought to offend no one, if it be true; still less, if it be untrue.
"We must live with our fellows as with sick people, from whom we endure anything, without being dishonoured by what they say or do with respect to us. We must still love and pity them.
"No one is dishonoured by a kick from a horse or an ass. It is the same with the insults of brutal men and fools.
"Merit, which is so exposed to envy and calumny, would be much to be pitied if honour and glory depended on the pen and tongue of men, who are almost always ignorant, unjust, and mendacious.
"Tiberius was right in saying, that after thirty years of age every man should be his own doctor.
"Conjunctures and incidents are like the faces of mankind, no two are precisely alike; and experience will only lead to error, unless it be accompanied by good sense and discernment.
"Nothing sets us so much against pleasures as pleasures themselves. It is not without purpose that God has mingled thorns with the roses; it is that they may be felt.
"There is nothing so pernicious as idleness. One had almost better be doing wrong than doing nothing in this world.
"I have a great esteem for those who are virtuous upon principle; but those who are so only from coldness of temperament are not worth a straw.
"One should esteem literary men as living libraries; they should be cared for, liberally treated, consulted on subjects with which they are familiar. Beyond that mere knowledge, they are very ordinary people for the world and its business.
"Noble and high birth consists in the soul and the heart. When these are lofty and noble, all else is in unison with them. There is a canaille of kings as well as of common people."
More than a century elapsed before Sweden saw another Sovereign leave her shores, crownless. The circumstances of the respective cases were as different as the characters of the Sovereigns were opposite; and though Gustavus IV. suffered more, he will be sooner forgotten than Christina, his great predecessor.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Dr. John Doran.
Note: King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (1778-1837) was King of Sweden from 1792 until he was deposed in a coup in 1809. He was also the last Swedish monarch to be ruler of Finland.
The occupation of Finland in 1808-09 by Russian forces was the immediate cause of Gustav Adolf's overthrow, violently initiated by officers of his own army. Following his abdication on March 29, 1809, an Instrument of Government was hastily written, which severely circumscribed the powers of the monarchy. The "Instrument" was adopted in 1809 on June 6, the National Day of Sweden now as well as in his time. It remained in force until replaced in 1974. The crown, now with strictly limited powers, passed to Gustav Adolf's uncle King Carl XIII (1748-1818).
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