Source:
Queen Christina of Sweden: Lothian Prize Essay for 1880, pages 54 to 57, by Arthur Henry Hardinge, 1880; original at the University of Michigan
The essay:
In Rome — a city of grave divines — Christina was wise enough to avoid repeating the wild gaieties of her life at Brussels. It is probable, too, that as the excitement and novelty of her altered situation wore off, she felt once more an inclination for quieter and worthier pursuits. Her time was spent in looking at the picture-galleries, churches, and other antiquities of Rome; and she surrounded herself with professors and literary men, whom she collected from the various colleges in the city, and who formed a kind of academy or learned society, with weekly meetings at her palace. In this society, which met for the first time at the beginning of the year 1656, philosophical and literary questions were discussed, and poetical recitations and concerts given; but its members were none of them men of European celebrity, and were as a whole inferior in merit to the savants whom she had favoured at Stockholm.
Yet, sober, comparatively speaking, as her behaviour was, she still sometimes gave occasion for unfavourable reflections upon her. The Roman nobility complained that she had not repaid their attentions. A ridiculous story was spread about a certain Cardinal Colonna, who, it was said, was violently in love with her, — so much so, that the Pope, to prevent a scandal, had been obliged to remove him from Rome. Her irreverent behaviour in church, too, was severely commented on. She laughed and talked, men said, during Mass, with the cardinals in attendance; and the Pope had given her, by way of a gentle rebuke, a rosary, which he had recommended her to use during her prayers. All these stories, with a hundred other exaggerations, were carefully spread about by the Spanish party at Rome; for that party had noticed with disgust that Christina, who for the last six years had been entirely on their side, was now veering round again towards France, and had lately shewn marked attention to the French ambassador, M. de Lionne. Of this change, which was probably mainly due to the queen's own fickle disposition, all kinds of explanations were given: the most common view, however, ascribed it to the influence of the Pope. Alexander VII. was supposed to be, on the whole, French in his sympathies; and it was said that the Spanish party, believing Christina to be devoted to their cause, had wished to use her as an instrument for securing for the House of Austria the friendship of the Papal court. So far from this being the case, the influence of the Pope would seem to have been employed to make Christina dismiss some of her Spanish attendants, and fill their places with Italians; and the consequent protests of the Spanish party roused all her pride and independence, and determined her inconstant nature to throw itself on to the side of France. The calumnies spread by the Spaniards and especially by her chamberlain, Don Antonio de la Cueva, only increased her anger. She dismissed De la Cueva from his post, and appointed the Marq. Sentinelli [sic] in his stead. She even wrote angry remonstrances to the Catholic king's ambassador, Terranova, and to Cardinal Medicis, the leader of the Spanish faction in the Curia; and she put forth a kind of proclamation or manifesto, setting forth in strong terms the reasons which had made her take these steps. "I am not", she says, "a subject of the King of Spain, that I should blindly follow the advice of his servants." And this strange document goes on to add, that she told Cardinal Medicis that nothing but his general's uniform had prevented her from having De la Cueva horsewhipped, whilst hinting pretty plainly that her reverence for his sacred office had alone saved the cardinal from similar treatment. The Pope, it is said, supported the queen in all that she had done, and told Terranova that he would take as a personal offence anything that might be said or done against her.
The following summer Christina gave a further mark of her complete estrangement from the Spanish party by a visit to the Court of France. Her health had suffered in the spring, and the outbreak of an epidemic in the unhealthy neighbourhood of Rome, made it necessary that she should travel; leaving Italy early in August, she arrived in the beginning of September at Fontainebleau. She spent over a month in France, and appears to have been greatly pleased with what she saw there. The court, though it had not yet reached the height of its reputation for brilliancy, must even then have presented a strong contrast to that of her own country, with its coarse and tedious dinners and toasts, and still more to the solemn dulness of a society like that of Brussels, where Spanish ceremonial reigned supreme. Christina was much struck with the young king, who was at that time about twenty years old, and who already possessed the dignified bearing and courtly manners for which he afterwards became so famous. On the whole[,] she made a favourable impression. Mdlle. de Montpensier, who had heard strange stories about her appearance, "expected to burst out laughing when she saw her", but was agreeably surprised, and "felt", she tells us, "no disposition to laugh at her." She spoke, she adds, on many subjects, and what she said she said in an agreeable manner; occasionally deep reveries would come over her, she would heave great sighs, and then wake up from them all of a sudden, like a person awakening with a start; Mdlle. de Montpensier was, however, somewhat staggered at Christina's behaviour at the play, and on some other occasions. In praising bits which pleased her, she says she would swear by God, lie down upon her chair, kick about her legs, and put herself into scarcely decent attitudes. Nor was Mdlle. de Montpensier the only person who noticed these strange proceedings; Mme. de Motteville, who gives a detailed and vivid picture of her visit, blames them even more severely. "She was", and tells us in her Memoirs, "utterly unlike a woman; she was even without a woman's modesty.... She would roar with laughter when anything tickled her, particularly at the Italian comedy, if the buffoonery was good. She would often sing in company, or appear to wander in her mind.... She was rough and free in all that she said, both in talking about religion, and also about subjects respecting which the decency due to her sex should have made her more reserved. She used to swear by God; and in the presence of the king, the queen, and the whole court, she would put up her legs on to chairs quite as high as the one on which she herself was sitting, and exhibit them very much too freely. She professed to despise all women for their ignorance, and talked with men on subjects of every kind, both good and bad."
Yet, in spite of faults like these, Christina was both liked and admired at the French court; Anne of Austria, a quiet, decorous Spanish princess, told the circle at Compiégne that she had been "charmed with the queen;" though startled at first, like every one else, after hearing her talk for about a quarter of an hour or so, her surprise[,] she said[,] had turned into liking. Christina's conversation, when she chose, could be very agreeable; without being pedantic, she discussed all sorts of literary and artistic subjects, and spoke the purest and most Parisian French. In the eyes of charitable judges, who recognised in her a woman of no ordinary description, merits like these outweighed or made up for defects and eccentricities, which were partly the result of her abnormal training, and some of which, as for instance her frankness, and entire freedom from personal vanity, would have appeared, if kept within reasonable bounds, to be virtues rather than vices. It would be superfluous to attempt to describe at length the ceremonies observed on her visit, the deputations of the clergy and of the magistrates of Paris, or the speeches addressed to her when she went to the Academy of France, in which she had always professed the deepest interest. Early in October she left Compiégne to return to Italy, and on her way paid a visit, at Senlis, to the celebrated Ninon del' Enclos, that famous beauty, whose charms and wit old age, it is said, was powerless to destroy.
Above: Kristina.
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