Source:
Eccentric Biography; or, Memoirs of Remarkable Female Characters, Ancient and Modern, pages 94 to 96, by anonymous author, 1803; original at The British Library
The biography:
... But, though at first she was fond of the power and splendor of royalty, yet she began at length to feel that it embarrassed her; and the same love of independence and liberty, which had determined her against marriage, at last made her weary of the crown. As, after the first disgust, it grew more and more irksome to her every day, she resolved to abdicate, and, in 1652 [sic], communicated her resolution to the senate. The senate zealously remonstrated against it, and was joined by the people, and even by Charles Gustavus himself[,] who was to succeed her. She yielded to their importunities, and continued to sacrifice her own pleasure to the will of the public, till the year 1654, and then she carried her design into execution. It appears, by one of the letters to M. Canut [sic], the French ambassador, in whom she placed great confidence, that she had meditated this project more than eight years, and that she had communicated it to him five years before it took place. The ceremony of her abdication was a mournful solemnity, a mixture of pomp and sadness, in which scarce any eyes but her own were dry [sic]. She continued firm and composed through the whole, and, as soon as it was over, prepared to remove into a country more favourable to science than Sweden. Concerning the merit of this action, the world has always been divided in opinion; it has been condemned alike both by the ignorant and the learned, the trifler and the sage: it was admired, however, by the great Conde; 'how great was the magnanimity of this princess', says he, 'who could so easily give up that for which the rest of mankind are continually destroying each other, and which so many throughout their whole lives pursue, without attaining!' It appears, by the work of St. Evremond[,] that the abdication of Christina was at that time the universal topic of speculation and debate in France. Christina, besides abdicating her crown, abjured her religion; but this act was universally approved by one party, and censured by another; the papists triumphed, and the protestants were offended. No prince, after a long imprisonment, ever shewed so much joy upon being restored to his kingdom, as Christina did in quitting her's. When she came to a little brook, which separates Sweden from Denmark, she got out of her carriage, and, leaping to the other side, she cried out in a transport of joy, 'At last I am free and out of Sweden, whither I hope I shall never return.' She dismissed her women, and laid by the habit of her sex; 'I would become a man', said she; 'yet I do not love men because they are men, but because they are not women.' ...
Above: Kristina.
Notes: embarrassed = burdened.
The story of Kristina at the border brook or creek is a myth, as is the creek itself, made up by Monsieur de Picques to denigrate her.
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