Source:
Some Historic Women; or, Biographical Studies of Women Who Have Made History, page 293, by William Henry Davenport Adams, 1890-1899; original at the University of Toronto - Robarts Library
Above: Kristina.
The biography:
On a second visit to France, she was lodged at Fontainebleau, where a tragic incident occurred. The Marquis Monaldeschi, an Italian, who was one of her suite, and had received very generous treatment at her hands, was guilty of an act of treachery, for which he merited punishment. Christina, however, instead of leaving him to be dealt with by the French law, resolved of her own sovereign authority to put the traitor to death. She sent for him to the so-called Gallery of the Stags, and having taxed him with his guilt and forced him to acknowledge it, left him in the hands of a couple of soldiers, who despatched him with their swords. So high-handed and cruel an action, committed in the palace of the French monarch, necessarily exposed Christina to severe criticism, and was resented by Louis XIV. with such unmistakable coldness that she found it advisable to leave France.
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