Faith Compton Mackenzie on Kristina switching her focus from Vatican politics to the arts, and on her quarrel with the sisters Marie and Hortense Mancini

Source:

The Sibyl of the North: The Tale of Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 245 to 247, by Faith Compton Mackenzie, 1931; original scan at the Universal Digital Library

https://archive.org/details/sibylofthenortht008021mbp/page/n259/mode/2up

The account:

CHAPTER XVII

AND LAST

THE ancient Altieri took the title of Clement X, and surprised his electors by lasting for six years. He had little influence, as was expected, upon the life of Rome, which went on as gaily as in the reign of Rospigliosi. Christina rose from the ashes of her Conclave failure and became a brilliant centre of intellectual life.

From Vatican politics to the Arts. The savants flocked again[,] and the spate of panegyrics was prodigious. It was useless for Christina to try and stem it. "No panegyrics!" was her order to the academy which gathered weekly in the shady garden of the Riario. But the poets ventured to disobey. Her own copy of Pignatelli's book dedicated to her is in the British Museum. She has read it carefully and made excitable marginal notes. "This is not at all to the point. Only laughable", she says when she is compared to Alexander the Great. "Non è vero!" "Non sta bene!" "Non lo posso soffrire!" occur frequently. But when Pignatelli says: "Born Woman, Your Majesty has become Man: nay, more than Man!" she cries in the margin: "Quest'è bello, bellissimo!"

Sitting in her box at the opera, with her cardinals around her, she could not look away from the stage without encountering the malicious eyes of the Grand Constable's lady, Maria Colonna, who, a few years ago[,] had supplanted her sister Olympe Mancini in the affections of Louis XIV. Now Maria Mancini was the first and much the most amusing hostess in Rome. Throughout the Conclave she had been a continual provocation to Christina. Her parties at Palazzo Colonna were spectacular, and no one could resist them. All the beautiful women in Rome could be met there, whereas at the Riario one encountered nothing but men, and if one were not careful one was caught in a recitation of supreme dullness and length. True, there was always delightful music at the Riario, and brilliant conversation, but the atmosphere was sometimes oppressive, with Christina too much preoccupied with playing her part for the good of the Church to be quite her high-spirited self.

The Palazzo Colonna was especially gay [cheerful] while the Conclave was going on, because Maria's naughty sister Hortense had fled from her tiresome old husband, Meilleraye, disguised as a boy, and had arrived in Rome with nothing but a maid. Her beauty was amazing, and it was not surprising that the Duc de Chaulnes, the Marquis d'Astorga, and their gentlemen should prefer dancing at the Palazzo Colonna to talking politics at the Riario. Maria Colonna had actually suggested that Christina should shelter her sister when she discovered, even before the Conclave, that she had been too indiscreet. That was a pretty idea, indeed, when it was all Christina could do to endure the sight of her own respectably married ladies-in-waiting in that condition. And as though Hortense needed sheltering!

There were ways and ways of leading ambassadors into the right political path, and the Mancini way was not and could not be Christina's. There was no doubt that Palazzo Colonna was a stronghold of the Chigi faction, and when it was known that Hortense had been dressing up as a slave, in the slightest of garments, luring de Chaulnes into a private cabinet — even though her sister was present and the interview lasted but a quarter of an hour, and the French Ambassador had come from it with the air of one who n'avait pas donné contentement — Christina wrote indignantly to Azzolino of the danger of these hussies, a letter which the Cardinal called an "elixir vitæ" and read to all his friends of the escadron, omitting, it was believed, one or two sentences.

It had been a tug of war all those four months between Christina and the two scandalous sisters, and the sisters had had the best of it. No wonder that their continual presence in the box opposite Christina's was intolerable. She complained to the Grand Constable himself, and he said that if he moved his box he would also move the whole theatre. She turned to the Pope, and he was scarcely more helpful. He pointed out that since she had to tolerate the presence of a large crowd of common people in the theatre, she could hardly object to the presence of one of the first families in Rome. In the end she was pacified by an order that did not remove the Mancinis, but decreed that all gentlemen present should be uncovered while the Queen was present. A good deal of talk was caused by the sight of a large notice attached to Christina's box which ran:

"Indulgentia plenaria pro Purpuratis."

["Plenary indulgence for those clothed in purple."]

The significance of this was that, Christina's box being always so crowded with cardinals that they were unable to sit down, they were to be exempt from the general rule. But it was an elegant inspiration for the pasquinades which were so popular at the Palazzo Colonna. ...

Above: Kristina.

Above: Pope Clement X.

Above: Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna.

Above: Marie Mancini.

Above: Hortense Mancini.

Above: Cardinal Decio Azzolino.

Above: Faith Compton Mackenzie.

Note: "that she [Hortense] had been too indiscreet" = that she had gotten pregnant.