The court of Christina of Sweden and the later adventures of the Queen in exile, pages V to VIII, by Francis Henry Gribble, 1913
The preface:
PREFACE
The personality and proceedings of Queen Christina of Sweden were the subject of passionate 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'[s] 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 particular 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.
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 Stockholm; 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 yielding 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 inadvertently, 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 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 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 Arckenholtz cannot justly be said to block the way to any other writer. It belongs to the great category of "books which are no books", presenting the characteristics of a work of reference 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.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Francis Henry Gribble.
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