Source:
The Sibyl of the North: The Tale of Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 204 to 219, by Faith Compton Mackenzie, 1931; original scan at the Universal Digital Library
The account:
CHAPTER XIV
FROST
ON the 22nd of May, 1666, a long line of coaches were drawn up on the Lungara, outside the Palazzo Riario. The Chigi family and other cardinals were waiting to escort Christina outside the walls of Rome on the first stage of her journey to Hamburg. At two in the morning she was ready to start, and the procession began.
Driving across the Campagna that morning, meeting the stream of gay [cheerful] peasant carts on their way to Rome as the cool dawn crystallized into the magic of an Italian spring day, Christina wept. All day she was in tears, and that night she did not sleep, because to leave Rome was an agony scarcely to be borne.
"I would rather live in Rome and eat bread and water and have only a maid to look after me than possess all the realms and treasure of the world", she wrote later to Azzolino.
Yet the restless spirit of adventure drove her from happiness to the unfriendly North — to Hamburg[,] where she was not needed, and to Sweden[,] where she was not wanted. Her suite consisted of sixteen people, of whom the chief was the Marquis del Monte. Joseph Malaspina, Marquis d'Olivola, was also in attendance. He had been page to Christina since childhood and was half English, his mother being a Dudley of the family of the Earl of Northumberland. A contemporary describes him as "young and well made, extraordinarily handsome, and had a Bon Grace in everything he did. But he was a universal lover, and managed an amour like a Roman hero."
The Abbé Santini travelled as a secretary, Macchiati as her doctor, and Pezza as treasurer. Besides these went Clairet Poisonnet, Francesca Passaglia and Françoise Landini, the latter a femme de chambre whom Christina had picked up in Paris. She was a handsome girl, and when Christina found to her disgust — for she hated the sight of pregnant women — that Françoise was in that condition, she married her to her lover Landini, one of the executioners of Monaldesco, but not until a few days before the baby arrived. Landini himself was left behind on this expedition, but in Hamburg del Monte, as brisk as ever among the ladies, consoled Françoise for the absence of her husband, meeting her secretly at the French periwig-maker's, La Fortune, and the result of this intrigue, a pretty little girl, was adopted by Christina and baptized Marie. The child developed a fine voice and was with the Queen until her death.
However deep Christina's regret for Rome may have been, once the city was left behind there was no dallying on the road. With relays of horses they travelled night and day through Spoleta, Macerata, Ferrara, Legnano, Verona and Trent, and across the Tyrol, arriving on the 10th of June at Augsburg. Two carriages and a calèche were all the equipage for the whole suite, so that many had to go on horseback. Only one member of her company actually collapsed on the journey, and that was Malaspina. He was bad enough to need Macchiati's attentions, so they both stayed behind, while the rest, in varying stages of exhaustion, went forward, with Christina herself, as usual, lively and alert so long as excitement lasted.
After the Alps the pace slackened, though discomforts increased, with straw beds for the suite at several stopping-places, and poor food, for, once Germany was reached, the only consolation for absence from Rome was in sight. At Erfurt Clairet Poisonnet was sent speeding ahead to Hamburg. He was to travel day and night without a moment's delay. At Luneburg Christina was met by Texiera and Stropp, who brought the news that the Swedish Diet had been postponed indefinitely: they had other important things to talk about; but Christina was preoccupied and would not listen.
Where was Poisonnet? He was to have brought her letters from Rome. That was why he had hurried ahead, so that she should have Azzolino's first letter addressed to Hamburg twenty-four hours earlier. But here was no Poisonnet, and everything was suspended until he could be found. For once he had overstepped the mark in his zeal for Christina. Knowing how passionately she desired the packet from Rome, he had gone beyond Luneburg to meet her on the road and had missed his way. At one o'clock in the morning he was found, and Christina spent the rest of the night scolding him and reading her letter. She had written thirteen times to Azzolino during the month's journey. Next day, the 22nd of June, she was in Hamburg, and at once established herself in a large house opposite the church of St. Michael, realizing that her journey to Sweden would be postponed. She had written from Rome to Bååt and Adami with instructions to announce her approaching visit. As she had never heard directly from the Regency as to the result of their Secret Commission, she asked for the free exercise of her religion for herself and her suite while in Sweden, and gave them an opportunity for revising their severe restrictions. Bååt's reply to her letter was waiting for her at Hamburg. It was not encouraging, and this decided her to buy the house in Hamburg and await Swedish developments while she and Texiera wrestled with her accounts.
There was a weekly post to Rome, and Christina never missed it. Her brilliant and self-revealing letters to Azzolino, all preserved by him, are the letters of a woman deeply in love. The imperious creature abases herself at the feet of the idol, and suffers the usual torments of the too ardent lover. The slightest coolness in his weekly letter sends her into an ecstacy of apprehension, and, though Azzolino's share in this long correspondence was destroyed by his own hand, there is no doubt from Christina's reproaches that many a cold blast served only to fan the flame of her infatuation.
In her first letter from Hamburg she sends him a million blessings for the affection he shows in his code letter; "the many tender sentiments it contains console me for all my sorrows". His affection is returned by "the tenderest passion and the most 'L' in the world".
"I do not know if I shall ever be happier, but I do know that I 'R' you till death."
They wrote in a secret code known only to themselves.
"Tell our poet", she writes later, meaning Azzolino himself, "his last verses are so beautiful that I admire them more than anything Petrarch ever wrote. ... Everything you send me of his is divine, but this last 'Hore un temps si breve' surpasses anything I have ever seen. If he goes on, he will become as famous on Parnassus as he is in the world. Please, have them put to music to be sung by Ciccolino, because I can tell from here how admirable the effect would be." Ciccolino was a favourite singer of Christina's who travelled with her to Germany.
A month after she arrived in Hamburg she writes that she is distracted because she has no letter from Azzolino. She admits that to console herself she read the correspondence of Françoise Landini to get news of him. At least she knows that he is not ill. But what can be the reason of his silence? Her mind whirls with a hundred thousand fancies. But whatever the cause of it, she is sure it cannot be that he has forgotten her, or could ever lose an opportunity of writing to her. Her anxiety is beyond anything imaginable, and her only consolation for it is that her state of mind proves her feelings to be worthy of him.
When she has finished this agitated letter, two packets arrive from Azzolino, and one is the missing one. All is well then, and she is paid with interest for her anxiety.
She detests Hamburg and the Germans. She is well but extremely bored, and nothing can console her for absence from Rome. "Comfort me with your thoughts, and believe in the faithful and inviolable love I shall feel for you till death." "In most places it takes only twenty-four hours to make a day and a night; here an hour lasts twenty-four days, and those same days, which in Rome only endure a moment, last for centuries; and, if you have heard that I pace my room all night alone, you have heard the truth; and you might also have heard that I spend the nights weeping for my misfortunes, but this is a secret between you and me."
The chill was already noticeable in Azzolino's letters, and she assures him that whatever changes take place in his heart, nothing will change hers and she will be faithful to him till death.
"As for me, I am in a state which it would be painful for me to describe to you, and you must not be surprised if I do not reply to your chiffres, because I think my silence will speak better for me, and worry you less." In November she says: "All your coldness will not prevent me from adoring you jusqu'à la V."
Christina's presence in Rome had begun to be irksome to Azzolino, in spite of a devotion to her which was genuine and deep enough. He had urged more strongly than anyone the importance of her journey North, and she could not help being bitterly conscious of his urgency. This doubt once planted in her mind would have grown to vast dimensions while she was away from him, feverishly preoccupied as she was all through her long absence from him. The constant reiteration of her faith in him only proved the doubt that was gnawing at her soul. She was wrong to doubt him for a moment. Whatever his chiffres may have contained of discouragement, his loyalty to her was always beyond question. Only he was, after all, a cardinal, with great prospects before him, and as the leader of the escadron volant, a marked man in Vatican politics. He was not yet, as Christina says, papable, but he would be one day; and meanwhile perhaps he was a little tired of scandal and pasquinades[,] of which M. de Coulange's
"Mais Azolin dans Rome
Sçait charmer ses ennuis;
Elle eût sans ce grand homme
Passé de trist[e]s nuits",
was only a mild example. His attempts to cool the correspondence were not successful; only a bitterness is added to the warmth. She is glad he had an amusing time at Frascati, and is grateful that he thought of her, but she is sure that when she returns to Italy (if she ever does return) she will find everything changed except her own heart. The threat not to come back, to settle in Sweden even, is constantly made at this time, to draw Azzolino, probably, but the effect is apparently negative. He either does not believe in it or would not be too dismayed if it were carried out.
"Everything is frozen in this country except my heart, which is more ardent than ever", she writes on January 12, 1667.
Poor Christina! To her next letter she adds a postscript: "If Hamburg is not far enough away from Rome to satisfy your cruelty, I will go to the other end of the world and never return."
Worse was still to come. His next letter made very clear what earlier he had only hinted. She replies:
"... I hope never to offend God, by His grace, and never to give you reason to offend Him either; but this resolution does not prevent me from loving you till death, and, since your vocation exempts you from being my lover, I exempt you from being my servant, for I wish to live and die your slave."
Azzolino was evidently attempting to modify their relations before Christina returned to Rome. Whatever those relations were, they had begun to be embarrassing, and with the probability of a conclave in the near future, and the absorbing occupation this would involve for him, he foresaw that the unrestrained adoration of the Queen would not help his work or his prestige. A slightly different footing — that was what he wanted.
Christina, in her hysterical state of mind, probably read more into his chiffres than he intended, and more and more she taunts him with such remarks as that she will be away at least two years. "... My return to Rome is not so near at hand as you fear. You shall not be bored by my presence for long, and if I can, as I hope, overcome Rome's fatal attraction for me, I shall go and seek a corner of the world where poverty is not a crime as it is in Rome." This last jibe was inspired by Azzolino's complaint of her extravagance and the impossibility of satisfying her creditors in Rome if she did not occasionally send him some money.
While shattering, emotional scenes were crashing around her, she was working energetically at her money affairs. She would be sitting till dawn at her bureau, writing and calculating desperately. As the hated winter set in[,] she scarcely went out; working, sleeping, eating, giving audiences and hearing Mass in one room. Her mild diversions were picquet and chess with del Monte and Malaspina, but not for money, she says, as she had none, and did not care to win from them. "Sometimes we talk of Rome and you, and dream of our return."
Her health was wretched. A persistent and "strange" pain in her side disturbed such sleep as she allowed herself. She never could sleep at all the night after the post from Rome arrived. Appalling colds which "furiously bothered her" with sore throats and endless headaches made the winter a burden. Macchiati told her that the colds were encouraged by her habit of sitting over the fire reading, but his diagnosis of her state in a private letter to Azzolino was, rightly, that it was emotional. He was anxious enough about her to call in the famous Jewish doctor, de Castro, but the result of their consultation was negative. She drank a great deal of milk, but it came from a tainted source, judging from her description of the dairy methods of Hamburg, and may have been responsible for some of her trouble. She refused to be bled, though she accepted the excellent suggestion of de Castro that she should play battledore and shuttlecock. Malaspina was her favourite playmate at this game.
Meanwhile, the winter dragged along, with few diversions. Clairet was nearly killed in a duel with one of the Italian servants. Del Monte and Pezza had leapt from their beds, hurried to the spot and tried to stop it when the news was brought to them, but they were too late and Clairet lay apparently mortally wounded. But he recovered, and Christina, in a postscript to Azzolino says, simply but with affection: "That beast Clairet is out of danger."
The news of Santinelli's marriage to the Duchess of Ceri came in March, 1666 [sic]. The Duchess had been released from Castello Sant'Angelo in 1659, only to be incarcerated again by her mother, the Princess Cariati, for six years in Naples, when at last[,] with Santinelli's help[,] she escaped. They both wrote to Christina after their marriage, and she bitterly admires their effrontery for doing so. Santinelli's faithfulness to his Duchess through all those years may not have been entirely disinterested, but he appears to have settled down respectably in Venice with her. He had had the satisfaction of being ennobled by the Emperor of Austria, and his wife signs herself "Maria Aldobrandini, Marchesa di San Sabastiano [sic]". So his Viennese visit was not entirely fruitless.
The dreariness of Hamburg was relieved for one night, Mardi gras, by a gorgeous fête, which Christina explained to Azzolino she was obliged to give to amuse the ladies of the neighbourhood who were continually coming to pay their respects. But it was principally an opportunity for the Marquis del Monte to see how much he could make the Queen spend in one evening. He and Pezza worked night and day to convert a neighbouring tennis-court into an amphitheatre, and here a grand banquet lasting four hours opened the entertainment. The gentlemen drew lots for their partners, and thus the question of precedence in a mixed company of aristocrats and bourgeoisie was cleverly overcome. Macchiati was sent to Wismar to summon the great old General Wrangel, who was the most sympathetic member of the Regency as far as Christina was concerned, and was engaged in what was to him the negligible task of subduing the Duchy of Bremen. In spite of an attack of erysipelas, he consented to play the part of Godefroy de Bouillon in the ballet of "Le Palais Enchanté d'Armide". Christina led a procession of magnificent slaves, herself without jewels but hung with heavy gold chains — a symbol[,] perhaps[,] which Azzolino would appreciate.
Then there was a lottery for some handsome mirrors which Christina had bought for four thousand crowns, and on the sale of which del Monte was said to have made a decent profit. She won them herself, but gave them to Countess Wrangel. A ball followed, in which the Queen danced with great spirit. Those who watched her declared that she was like a goddess descended from heaven, says Santini. Christina was herself again that night.
The day after the fête[,] she was so exhausted that she consented to be bled, and Macchiati had the satisfaction of relieving her of half a litre of blood which he says improved her appetite. The fête was the culmination of this visit to Hamburg, also nearly the limit of Azzolino's patience. She wrote him with a certain nonchalance that she had had a fête which she did not mention to him before in case it was not a success, but (now that it is over and it is useless to remonstrate) she assures him that she had revealed the gallantry and magnificence of Italy and France to a nation and town that had never imagined such a thing existed, and she herself was amazed at the good behaviour of the barbarous Hamburghers.
The Swedish Diet had been postponed so often that Christina despaired of ever reaching Stockholm if she waited for it. The Regency dreaded of all things her presence in the country and most of all at the Diet. "The idea of my presence in a Diet is to them the horror of horrors."
After several postponements the journey to Sweden was finally undertaken on April 28, 1667. The personnel of her suite had been approved by the Regency, Santini being described as "Secretary", though everyone knew he was a priest. The rest of her suite went with her, except Malaspina, who did not choose to be considered fit for the cold, wet climate of Sweden, and went to Spa to take the waters instead, returning thence straight to Italy. Malaspina had cleverly avoided the worst of the Rome-Hamburg journey by falling ill by the way and not joining the rest of the company with Macchiati until the Hamburg palace was quite comfortable. There was some trouble when he did arrive after having kept Macchiati on the road for more than a month while Christina's health was precarious and needed Macchiati[,] her personal physician, but he was forgiven much because he had great charm.
For some reason the Swedish Regency had not been told that the journey had been postponed from the 23rd of February, which was the original and apparently the final date of her departure. Fortunately for her Italian suite, the hard frost had made it impossible for them to do the journey they were all dreading. In Stockholm, therefore, preparations were made as though she were setting out in February. The outward form was, as usual, carefully observed. An escort was sent out from Stockholm to meet her at Helsingborg. Count Pontus de la Gardie, younger brother of Magnus, and the Baron Per Sparre set off on February 23 with a company of equerries, gentlemen of the chamber, halberdiers and palefreniers, with carriages and horses from the royal stables.
Count Pontus was a fine young cavalry officer of heroic proportions, Count Sparre a handsome diplomat and man of letters. It was not till they arrived at Helsingborg that they knew of the postponement of Christina's journey. For two months they had to kick their elegant heels in a deadly provincial town, where a letter from Christina blaming the post's delays was but poor consolation for the lack of almost every comfort and pleasure that made life endurable, in a winter which even for Sweden was abnormally severe.
While they waited[,] Christina began the journey to Sweden in a small open calèche which had been given to her by Wrangel. Though it was May[,] the season was bitterly cold and wet, and Macchiati begged her to be prudent. Even her stoic obstinacy could not long withstand the piercing winds, and she took refuge in her coach. But not before she had contracted chill and fever, and become so ill, at Corsor, that she thought she was dying. Terlon, who was now ambassador at Copenhagen, came to meet her there, and brought the news of the Pope's death, which later turned out to be premature. But the shock of it reduced her to a state of fever and melancholy, and such restlessness that she would not stay in Corsor, but pushed on to Soro, a primitive place where she lodged in a damp, cave-like room and lay on an improvised bed, completely exhausted with fever and cold. Terlon had brought his French chef with him, and it was his excellent bouillon, "brodi molto galanti, all'uso di Francia", wrote Macchiati to Azzolino, that restored her strength. But she did not escape blood-letting, as Terlon sent to Copenhagen for his surgeon, who bled her in the foot. She writes to Azzolino that she was deux doigts from death. But the day after the blood-letting she was up and lunching with Terlon and attending to her affairs as though nothing had happened. The "poor Italians", however, were in a desperate state, all suffering from various forms of cold, cursing the unnatural climate and longing for home.
On the 16th of May she crossed to Helsingborg in a gay [cheerful] little gold boat of the King of Denmark's, which was quite unseaworthy; but the day was calm, and in less than an hour she was hearing the salvos of greeting from the Swedish men-of-war. An impressive company was waiting for her at Helsingborg, including, of course, Pontus de la Gardie and Per Sparre. Seven hundred cavaliers ("gioventù veramente bella e bene a cavallo", says Macchiati) presented arms as she went to the house that had been prepared for her. Del Monte was favourably impressed by the good taste of this house, which he conceded was worthy of Rome. He was especially pleased with the cloth of gold canopy and the gorgeous state bed in green velvet and gold.
In spite of the Regency's prohibition[,] Christina did not forgo her daily Mass. Santini celebrated it the morning after they arrived[,] in a private room to which no one but her suite was admitted.
The next day she set out in state on her way to Stockholm. Everywhere she was greeted with joyful enthusiasm. To the people she was still their Queen, loved daughter of Gustavus Adolphus the Great — and what should they think but that she had come to reign over them again? Here she was with her brilliant blue eyes and her radiant personality, illumining the dark landscape of oppressed Sweden, cheering the sad prospect with authentic royalty. For whatever their grievances may have been when she reigned, her people had suffered more since she had left them, and now that the hated Regency was in power, and there was no one but a puny child who was hardly a Vasa for them to acclaim, it was not surprising that the sight of Christina set the whole countryside through which she passed on fire. No doubt the smoke of this conflagration reached Stockholm. Besides, news of a galley on its way to Stockholm, full of furniture for the Queen's use, had startled the Regency. It looked as though she meant to stay, and this must be prevented. For six days she made her triumphant progress among her people, and every day Santini celebrated Mass privately.
Then the Regency struck out. On the road Pontus de la Gardie had a letter from Stockholm in which he was ordered to tell Christina that the presence of Santini could not for another moment be tolerated in Sweden. This was obviously only a pretext. It was well known that Santini was a priest, and there could never have been any doubt that Christina would practise her religion in private wherever she was. Mass was celebrated each time behind closed doors with no one admitted except her suite, so that[,] if the Regency liked[,] they could have overlooked it. But they did not like. They would have kept Christina out of Sweden if they had dared, but they knew that such a step would be their own undoing. The last of the true Vasas had by now become an ideal to the Swedish people. The reign of Charles Gustavus had been a sad one for them, and the prospect of being governed by de la Gardie for several years was not alluring. No wonder the wild acclamations which greeted Christina reached Stockholm and alarmed the already apprehensive Regency. Again they struck her in the vulnerable spot, and again the stroke went home.
She was for turning back at once in the first white heat of rage, but thought better of it and wrote an angry letter to the King, giving him an opportunity of changing his mind in this affair and reminding him who he was and who she was, and assuring him that he was not born to give orders to such as her.
While waiting for the final word from Stockholm[,] she went on to her own town of Norrköping and did a certain amount of business there with Adami. She was no doubt soothed by her reception, which was clamorous, and decided to give a great banquet to her suite. While preparations were being made for it[,] the reply came from the Regency to Pontus de la Gardie. Not only did they require the dismissal of Santini, but they decreed that if she went to hear Mass at the house of M. Pomponne, now French Ambassador to Sweden, she should go ostensibly to pay an ordinary visit, and this grace would only be extended to her for a few weeks. This was, of course, as good as ordering her out of Sweden.
"What!" she cried. "I am to go and visit Pomponne! If he were to propose that to me[,] I would have him beaten! Yes, and in the presence of his own King, too!"
The banquet was abandoned. The royal escort was summarily dismissed, and Christina gave orders for the hire of post horses to carry her and her suite to the frontier next day. Young de la Gardie, ever mindful of externals, insisted upon escorting her himself as far as Helsingborg. Before she set out[,] she drank an ironic health to the King, the Queen-Mother and the Regency, and left Norrköping in as ill a humour as possible, fearing one moment to be delayed and at another hoping to be recalled — cursing the slowness of ostlers when the horses were changed, and finally being dissuaded with difficulty from embarking at Helsingborg at dead of night, because, de la Gardie pointed out, it would look too like running away.
On the 5th of June she left her native land, never to return. As usual, she was sustained by nervous energy throughout the whole of this trying episode. But young de la Gardie wrote to the King that in all his life he had never been so overworked. His eyes were blinded by the dust[,] and he could hardly stand upright. By the time the suite arrived at Hamburg[,] everyone except Christina was completely exhausted. Del Monte and Pezza were half dead, and the women in such a sorry plight that they were unable to appear for several days.
Christina's gesture — finer propaganda than any number of Masses, private or public — was applauded throughout the Catholic world. Terlon, in Copenhagen, gave a great banquet to the Faithful and celebrated her splendid resolution. Meanwhile, she applied herself once more to the solution of her financial problems, suffering, once the excitements of the journey were over, from an excess of bile which Macchiati tried in vain to alleviate by bleeding.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Cardinal Decio Azzolino.
Above: Faith Compton Mackenzie.
Note: Countess Wrangel = Anna Margareta von Haugwitz (1622-1673), Carl Gustaf Wrangel's wife.
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