Source:
Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 143 to 171, by Francis William Bain, 1890; original at the University of Connecticut Library
René Descartes' letter of February 16/26 (New Style), 1649 to Pierre Hector Chanut is here:
René Descartes' letter of September 29/October 9 (New Style), 1649 to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and the Palatinate is here:
Kristina's letter written sometime in 1653 to Isaac de Benserade is here:
Kristina's letter of March 23/April 2 (New Style), 1653 to the Comtesse de Brégy is here:
The account:
Although Christina's attention was so much engaged during those years in the negotiations for the peace, the settlement of the succession, and the internal disturbances in her own kingdom; although at the same time she was devoting herself to hard study, and taking an eager interest in philosophical, literary, and scientific subjects, which will presently be examined, she found time to follow closely contemporary foreign events. "One would have imagined", says Whitelocke in 1653, "that England had been her native country, so well was she furnished with the character of most persons of consideration there, and with the story of the nations." She was no less interested in France and its domestic affairs. As we have seen, she laboured during the peace negotiations for a cordial understanding with that country: especially did she admire Condé; after his victory at Nordlingen she wrote him a complimentary letter, which he answered in terms equally flattering. She did not confine herself to compliments: when the French wishes to engage the troops disbanded by Sweden for the Spanish war, which still continued, Christina, although the Senate was adverse, wrote to Prince Charles, then in Germany, bidding him oblige the King of France in this. Again, still further to show her good will, she sent two men-of-war as presents, one to the Queen, and one to the Cardinal, the latter called Julius, in his honour, and valued at 40,000 crowns. The view she took of the troubles of the Fronde was influenced by her esteem for Condé, who even wrote to demand her assistance, and a change is afterwards observable in her opinion of Mazarin. With the view of mediating between the belligerent parties, she wrote to Condé twice, to the King of France, to the King of Spain, to the Duke of Orleans, to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, to the Parliament, as well as to Cardinal de Retz and Anne of Austria.
In that to the Duke of Orleans she alludes to Mazarin as a stranger, who wishes to dictate the law and not stop till he has ruined all. Mazarin was aware of her views and resented her interference; some incautious expressions of her resident in Paris, though she afterwards disavowed them, increased the bad feeling, and her attempts at pacifying differences led to nothing.
When we come to consider Christina's reign on what is perhaps its most brilliant side, we must beware of falling into the mistake of supposing that the sudden scientific and literary glitter which emanated from Sweden at this moment has anything in common with those periods in history, such as that of Pericles in Athens or Elizabeth in England, when the national activity in war is accompanied by a spontaneous impulse in intellectual creation. There was scarcely any native element in the specious, but factitious and imported mental energy of the Swedish court; it depended almost entirely upon Christina's personal interest and patronage. She found Sweden on her accession in a state of intellectual darkness, into which when she vacated the throne it sank back, or rather from which it had never risen; not that she did not make a great effort to promote a better condition of things, but the people were not able to respond to her attempts — in spite of here and there an isolated instance, which only show more plainly because of the general want of culture. The position which Sweden then occupied in Europe was entirely based upon military relations, and far greater than its internal progress, whether commercial, intellectual, or social, entitled it to hold. A glance at this will materially assist us in estimating Christina's own influence.
The bad state of the finances, and the dangerous relation of the social strata to one another, as far as highest and lowest, nobles and peasantry, are concerned, have been already described. A middle class, manufacturing and commercial, was still in its infancy. The only good thing to be said for the war, that it brought Sweden into closer relation with the rest of Europe, and thus paved the way for commerce, must not be overlooked. Gustavus Adolphus endeavoured to improve it in various ways, especially in respect of handicrafts and manufactures; foreign artisans, refugees from Holland, France, Germany, and Spain, were encouraged to come and remain by special privileges and exemptions; by their instruction the fabrication of raw material, such as cotton and wool, weaving, metal and leather factories were improved; the working of the mines in which Sweden's chief wealth lay, silver, iron, and especially copper, received a great impulse from De Geer, who came from Holland, and the Walloon smiths he brought with him; this again acted beneficially on the manufacture of weapons of all kinds, which formed a chief article of export in exchange for, e.g., salt from Portugal, with which Sweden was ill supplied; some Crown monopolies, such as those of salt and corn, were withdrawn. Axel Oxenstiern's large views on trade have already been given, but monopolies and the system of guilds were the basis of the Swedish economical principles: "a man might make himself king in Sweden", said Klas Flemming, "but could not make himself a tailor." This, and the doubtful political relations, especially the jealousy of the Powers on the Baltic, stood in the way of commercial progress; though Sweden, in 1642, even extended her trade to the Delaware, on the banks of which was erected a Fort Christina. The trade, principally tobacco, was held as a monopoly by the State.
The educational provision in Sweden was very poor. Gustavus Adolphus did what he could for it; he established the University of Upsala on a new basis, endowed it with lands of his own, furnished it with a library and sent it books from Germany: at Dorpat he founded a college. In this respect even the nobles did something; during his governorship in Finland[,] Brahé established various schools and a college at Åbo; Axel Oxenstiern, a college at Westerås; John Skytté, a chair of history and political philosophy at Upsala; schools were also founded by Baner, Bielke, and others. Little was taught, however, but grammar, rhetoric, and logic, the most useless of all subjects to begin on; history very scantily, Latin badly. Whitelocke tells us that the professors at Upsala were promised good salaries, but complained that they were not well paid. The library at Upsala was not as good as his own private one; as he informed some of the scholars, "who were not well pleased therewith." He gave five pounds to Ravius, professor of Hebrew, whose pension was supposed to be 500 rix dollars, but he was never paid; he frequently refers to the bad Latin of the students. Theology flourished best, though there were few men of liberal opinions such as Matthiæ. "The Swedes", an ecclesiastic told Whitelocke, "generally and devoutly do adhere to the opinions of Luther and to the practice of the churches allowed by him, and whoever differs from them is not only looked upon with an evil eye, but commonly driven from the country." "In the seventeenth century it was ordered in Sweden and confirmed by Government, that if any Swedish subject change his religion, he shall be banished the kingdom, and lose all right of inheritance both for himself and his descendants. If any bring into the country teachers of another religion, he shall be fined and banished." Roman Catholics were not allowed to exercise their religion in Sweden till 1781. Just as in Scotland, to which in this respect Sweden was very similar, long sermons were the special feature of the religious service. The people were very superstitious; even the leading clergymen believed in leagues with the devil and witchcraft. In Finland, where the inhabitants were not men, said Oxenstiern, but beasts, Brahé made it the necessary standard for a priest that he should know his catechism. The greatest intolerance prevailed, especially of Roman Catholics or Calvinists. In 1657 a peasant was condemned to death for railing against the minister of his parish. Science did not exist, although alchemy and astrology were generally practised, and the philosopher's stone hunted for; any man of a little knowledge was regarded as a magician and atheist; the celebrated Stiernhielm was accused of witchcraft for having burned a peasant's beard with a magnifying glass, and shown a clergyman a flea through it; he was in danger of his life, and was only saved by the interposition of Christina. The odium of his persecutors was further excited by his patriotic assertion that the Swedish was more ancient than the Hebrew tongue.
Especially deplorable was the condition of medicine: the nostrums of quacks and old wives' receipts were the only form of cure; no one studied the subject, as a living could not be made by it; such doctors as there were invariably prescribed bleeding. The Regents endeavoured to improve this by importing doctors from abroad, who were not much better; they established a school of anatomy, and tried to introduce surgery; but the popular odium against dissection was so great that they could hardly induce any one to practise it. "There was in Sweden", said a certain Mornichof, "one king, one religion, and one doctor."
A passage in Whitelocke is well worthy quoting. "He enquired how the Chancellor's health was, and what physicians were about him. Lagerfeldt said he was still sick of his ague, and had no physician attending him but one who had been a chirurgeon in the army, and who had some good receipts, especially for the stone, which agreed with the Chancellor's constitution, which this chirurgeon only studied and attended." And so it was generally in this great and large country. Whitelocke met with no doctor of physic or professed physician in any town or country, nor any attending the person of the Queen herself: but there are many good women, and private persons, who use to help people that are diseased by some ordinary known remedies." The question of doctors will come before us again with reference to Christina. In Philosophy an Aristotelian scholasticism, or what was worse, the nonsense of Ramus, dominated the schools.
The private life was very rude; in Upsala, "not above nine or ten houses were built of brick." Whitelocke's own house, "a fair brick house", was the best in the town next to the Queen's own; most of them were built "of the bodies of great fir trees, covered with turf." The floors were generally not boarded, but paved with stone or brick; the walls were whitewashed, without any decoration, even in the best houses; the furniture was bad; at dinner a sort of canopy was ordinarily suspended over the table, to prevent spiders' webs from falling into the dishes. The cookery was very coarse, as also was the language; drinking and swearing were inseparable from a feast. "Thou hast preserved me", says Christina in her Memoirs, "from the vice of drunkenness, but suffered me to be infected with the vice of swearing by contagion; but by Thy grace, Lord, I have entirely cured myself of it; I am nevertheless in some sort excusable, because I was born in a country and an age where this defect reigned over both sexes alike, and people could not speak without swearing."
People were not generally well off. Whitelocke tells us of "a country minister's house, a very mean one, and his family in as mean a condition; his children in torn shirts, and no other clothes upon them in that bitter cold weather, and his wife little better furnished." During his journey from Gothenburg to Upsala, he and his suite were most miserably accommodated; "the gentlemen lay in fresh straw round about him, he being frolic and cheering them, and it is no small part of the art of government to know when to be familiar;" "they could get no other provision but the quarters of a beast which was said to be found dead in the field; Whitelocke commended the variety and dressing of this meat, and it went down with good stomachs, and made good meat afterwards to taste the sweeter, besides the delight in remembrance of it." And this is no isolated exception; the same thing occurs throughout his journey.
We shall be forcibly struck with the contrast, when we turn from this benighted condition of things to examine Christina's relations with the literary and scientific men of her time. The Peace of 1648 left her at liberty to indulge her many-sided intellectual interests: Stockholm became a loadstone to draw together savans from all parts of Europe.
Foremost among these was Descartes. She had already heard much of him from Chanut, who was a great friend of his, and a zealous Cartesian: in 1646 she sent to ask him, through Chanut, his opinion on this question: When one makes a bad use of love or hate, which of those abuses is the worst? Descartes, though we may suspect he knew as little as Bacon of the passion of love, concluded in his dissertation on the subject that when pushed to a vicious extreme, love was the most dangerous. She next asked him for his opinion on the Summum bonum, on which he sent her a treatise on the question; according to him, external blessings being precarious, there remain to us two points of special importance: to know, and to will, what is good: the sovereign good for us he places accordingly in always preserving a firm and constant resolution to do what according to our judgment is best, and endeavour with all our strength to discern it well. Shortly afterwards Christina wrote and invited him to come to Stockholm; after some hesitation he accepted, in a letter full of hyperbole; he wrote at the same time to Chanut, in which he says among other things (and the opinion of one who was so good a writer of French prose as Descartes is worth having), "I was surprised to see how easily and tersely she writes French; our whole nation is much obliged to her, therefore, and it seems to me that this Princess has been created far more in the image of God than other men have; the more so, as she can apply herself to so great a variety of business at once." Nevertheless, with characteristic caution, Descartes, to make sure of his ground, wrote to Freinsheim (whom Christina had made her librarian, the author of the 'Supplement to Livy'), and asked him whether, as he was the author of a new philosophy and a Roman Catholic, this might not be a snare of his enemies to do him harm. Freinsheim reassured him, and accordingly in October, 1649, he arrived at Stockholm, and was graciously received by Christina. The admiration was mutual: Descartes wrote soon after to his friend the Princess Elizabeth,
"The generosity and majesty of the Queen in all her actions is combined with such sweetness and goodness, as to make all fall in love with her; she is extremely given to study, though I cannot say whether she will approve of my own philosophy, as she knows nothing of it as yet." He adds, with a touch of his usual contempt for learning, that this keen ardour of hers in study incites her principally to the study of Greek and the collecting of ancient books, "but perhaps this will change."
The course of events furnishes an ironical commentary on this letter. Christina had so much to do that she was very avaricious of her time; her ardour for study made it necessary for Descartes to come and see her at five o'clock every morning in her library; her Greek studies proved to be awkward, if it be true, as is said, that she accused him of stealing his ideas from Plato. There seems to be a fatality in the relations between philosophers and princes. The early rising in a very cold climate was fatal to Descartes, who was fond of lying in bed in the morning; after about two months of these discussions before sunrise, he was attacked by fever and inflammation of the lungs, and died on February 1st, 1650. But the concern Christina showed at his death is a sufficient refutation of ill-natured reports; she was only dissuaded with difficulty from giving him a funeral like that of the ancient kings of Sweden; although Baillet's assertion, that she consulted him on political questions, is no less foolish than the tittle-tattle of Madame de Motteville, that he died because Christina despised his philosophy. He was buried at Stockholm; seventeen years afterwards his remains were removed to Paris. Though he was viewed with jealousy by the pedants at the Court, yet he left a few disciples in Sweden, who formed the nucleus of a sect; some time after, in the reign of Charles XI, nearly all the professors of philosophy at Upsala being Cartesians, the adherents of Scholasticism complained to the King, who decided in favour of the new method. Christina always attributed to him a considerable influence in her conversion; for this one of her biographers accuses her of superficiality, as, according to him, it is almost paradoxical that her Catholicism should have been induced by his sceptical principles. Why, certainly, there is here evidence of superficiality, but it is not Christina's.
A philosopher of a very different school was Gassendi, for whom, although she never met him, Christina always had a great admiration, but not greater than he deserved. In July, 1652, he wrote her a letter, telling her that he had heard of her from Bourdelot; he congratulated her on realising the ideal of Plato, who refused happiness to the human race till kings should be philosophers, and philosophers kings. Christina answered his flattery in a letter of which Malherbe declared that it was written in a style as pure as if it had been penned at the Court of France; and throughout her life she maintained a correspondence with him.
But the bulk of her admirers and protégés were men of learning rather than philosophy; of these Salmatius [sic], or Saumaise, was the first; chiefly known now, just as Milton predicted, by his 'Defence of the People of England', which was an answer to the 'Defence of the King', by Saumaise. His great reputation for learning made Christina anxious to bring him to Sweden; she wrote him several letters to invite him; finally he came in the summer of 1650, and was lodged in the royal palace. His University of Leyden, however, declared that they could no more do without him than without the sun, and he returned the next year. He was a man of an arrogant and overbearing temper, and thought that no one knew anything but himself; hence he had many enemies, especially at the Court of Sweden; there during his stay he was at variance with Vossius, Nicolas Heinsius, and others. He treated other savans, even of the first order, as merely of the mob in comparison with himself. Being one day in the library of the King of France, in company with Gaulmin and Maussac, the former said, complacently, "I think we three could make head against all the learning in Europe." Saumaise promptly replied, "Add yourself and Maussac to all the savans in the world, I will make head against the lot of you, alone." Even Grotius he treated with contempt. "One would have thought", says Bayle, "he had placed his throne on a heap of stones, in order to throw them at all that passed by." Christina was perfectly able to distinguish between different sorts of ability, and mingled her esteem for his learning with a certain contempt for his pedantry, a thing she always abhorred, though there was plenty at Stockholm; she used to call him "omnium fatuorum doctissimum" ["the most learned of all fools"], and said of him that he knew the name for a chair in all languages, but did not know how to sit down on one. Nevertheless, she had a regard for his great acquirements, and when he died, wrote a letter of condolence to his widow, (a shrew before whom the imperious scholar quailed when alive, and who burned all his MSS. on his death), rebuking her "for the homicide she had committed on his writings." It was by Saumaise that Bourdelot was introduced to the Queen, and the savans put down her changed attitude to them after the arrival of the latter in part to the machinations of Saumaise. "Constans hic est opinio", wrote Heinsius to Gronovius in 1655, "Salmasii et Bourdelotii operâ Christinam periisse." ["The opinion here is constant that Kristina has perished [been ruined] through the work of Saumaise and Bourdelot."] This "periisse", of course, represents the view taken of her conduct by the Swedish Lutherans and disappointed pedants.
In 1649, Isaac Vossius was invited to Sweden: celebrated especially for his knowledge of Greek, which Christina studied with him, he is also suspected of teaching her his own views on religion, or irreligion, for he was supposed to be an atheist, which did not prevent Charles II. from making him Canon of Windsor: the king's witticism on him, when Vossius was ventilating some wild theories about China, "This learned theologian is a strange man, he believes everything but the Bible", may have been partly the cause of his getting the canonry. He was certainly a man of lax principles as to meum and tuum, and made capital out of his commission to buy books for Christina's library: of which more anon. Nicholas Heinsius, a man of a simple[,] honourable character, the editor of Ovid and Claudian, whose father had been much esteemed by Gustavus Adolphus, was also sent by Christina into Italy to collect MSS. and books: Herman Conring, the author of the refutation of the Papal Bull already mentioned: Naudæus, whom she made her librarian: John Amos Comenius, who was summoned by Christina to come and reform all the schools in the kingdom, in accordance with his Janua Linguarum reserrata, dealing with a new method of teaching languages; Loccenius, and Schoeffer, his son-in-law, who distinguished themselves in the study of Swedish antiquities; John Henry Boecler, whom she made Professor of Eloquence at Upsala, and the year after, 1650, her historiographer, were a few among the host of savans who crowded her Court. "They came in flocks with their philology and antiquities, the fashionable learning of the age; displayed their arts, wrote dedications and panegyrics, in which all the elegancies of the Latin tongue were brought to vie in praise of the Queen, presented books, were rewarded and dismissed."
Of Boecler the following story is told, which throws light on the university system. In his lecture one day, on Tacitus, he said, "Plura adderem, si plumbea Suecorum capita ista capere possent!" ("I would say more, if the leaden heads of Swedes could take it in!") One of the students answered immediately, "We have not only understood all you have said up to now, but we will understand all you can say in future." The lecture over, Boecler started to go through the antechamber of the lecture-room, when a number of students seized him and whipped him soundly; they furthermore broke all the windows of his house, and discharged guns into the windows of his sitting-room, where he sat with his family. Christina wrote in 1650, March 15, to order this matter to be sifted, and the authors severely punished. Boecler, however, fearing further outrages, applied for his congé and left; his pay while a professor had been 2500 crowns a year; the Queen gave him, by way of consoling him, a present of 4000 crowns, with a gold chain, and 200 ducats, besides making him perpetual historiographer with a yearly pension of 800 crowns a year. To Octavio Ferrario, an Italian savant, she gave a chain of gold worth a thousand crowns, though according to him "his joy at receiving it was nothing in comparison with that caused him by the addition of a letter in her own handwriting." She gave Grotius copper to the value of 12,000 crowns; to his widow she gave 3000 th. for an MS. history of the Goths found among his papers. Copper was a favourite present: she gave Chanut and Whitelocke amounts worth £2500; she presented Freinsheim with 500 ducats for his speech on her birthday, and also remitted to his native town most of its contributions for the indemnification of the army during the war. Salmasius was "overwhelmed with benefits"; Conring had a pension of 1600 th. in virtue of his title of Councillor of Sweden. These are specimens of her open hand: small wonder if she was surrounded by an eager crowd, with mouths open to praise her, and catch as well anything that might be falling. It may be doubted whether any sovereign ever had so many complimentary odes, panegyrics, and addresses composed in his honour as this "tenth Muse" and "Pallas of the North." And yet Christina despised flattery, and like Charles II., was never deceived even by those to whom she carelessly gave; her donandi cacoethes [mania for giving] was no respecter of persons. The parasitical crowd, when her abdication robbed them of their means of living, felt like the man deprived of his goose with the golden eggs.
Among other celebrated names connected with that of Christina may be mentioned that of Huet, afterwards Bishop of Avranches, who came with Bochart to Sweden, and published years after a manuscript of Origen he had copied in her library. He writes to a friend in 1653: "As to the Northern Queen, you must not trust the common portraits of her, which are libels. She is rather plump, one shoulder higher than the other; below the middle height. Her face is refined and pretty, her hair golden; her eyes flash so that she alone in Sweden might be said to have eyes at all. There is nothing wrong with her morals; for I pay no attention to those rumours scattered, especially in Germany, to the contrary: they are all forged in Imperial workshops; she carries modesty written on her face, and shows it by the blushes which cover it at an immodest word or deed before her. Her memory is not happy; her genius above her sex, her learning above her years; she is easy of access, genial, and courteous, yet tenacious of her majesty; still she has nothing of the German or Northern gloom, but you would think she was born at Rome or Paris. She is very fond of French; this is hated by the envious Swedes. What Cicero says of himself may be said with far more justice of her, that he was not a great eater but a great jester; for she is abstemious, though a Swede, and eats sparingly, but takes wonderful pleasure in merry jests."
Here we have another cause of her calumniators' abuse. Her laughter-loving nature was viewed by jaundiced eyes by the morose Puritans of Sweden, to whom a long and sour face was a necessary element in religion. A very good instance of her humour is a letter she wrote to Benserade. He had sent her his poems, which pleased her, and was to have come to Stockholm on an embassy, but did not, for some reason or other; she wrote accordingly: —
"You may bless your fortunate star, which has prevented you from coming to Sweden. A mind so delicate as yours would have caught a chill here, and you would have gone home with a spiritual cold in your head. You would have been all the rage in Paris with a square beard, the coat of a Lapp, with shoes to match, just back from the country of hoar frost. I can picture you winning the hearts of old women in such a costume. No, I tell you you have nothing to regret. What could you come to see in Sweden? Our ice is the same as yours, except that here it lasts six months longer. And our summer, when it is violent, is so outrageous that it strikes terror into the poor flowers, which do their best to look like jasmine. ... beware of deserving such an exile; yet I could wish that by some crime you might incur such a punishment, in order to let us poor folks in Sweden see some of France's choicest and most refined wit. Your verses are much appreciated here, and she to whom you sent them is much in your debt."
Of a similar character is a letter to the Countess de Brégy: —
"I can't tell what keeps me from using hard words to you, after all you have done to deserve them. What! after keeping silence for two years do you think you can cry quits by simply 'kissing my hand' in your friend's letter. Really you ought at least to be scolded. Know that I am, so to speak, very angry with you, and that your silence has gone hard to wound me deeply. Still I pardon you, on condition you are dumb no longer. *A propos* of your silence, I am tempted to quote the Pythagoreans to you, but one must not speak of them to an ignoramus like you. So I refrain; neither will I mention all the fine things I have heard of those excellent Longbeards, for fear of being taken for a fairy. Speak, then, so as to escape the suspicion of belonging to their order. To tell you what I want, send me news of your excellent Mistress, and your young Prince; tell me of the conversations of your circle, and the playful ways of the little fellow. I will have no State secrets from you; when the fancy seizes me for them I will apply to some one else, for I believe you know nothing about them. In fact, were I King of France, I should consider you suited for quite other things than government, and employ you in a service quite distinct from that of the State. We women don't understand statecraft: your incomparable Mistress alone has shown herself an adept in it. This is the way to make up our quarrel, I commend it to you as I bid you adieu.
"CHRISTINA."
Other celebrities can but be cursorily alluded to; Scarron, who sent her one of his comedies; Balzac, who was rewarded for the present of his works with a gold chain; Desmarets; Scudéry, who dedicated his 'Alaric' to her; his sister, Mdlle. de Scudéry, enjoyed a pension from Christina; Mézerai, the historian, to whom she assigned one of 3000 florins a year; Ménage, who wrote an eclogue in her honour, called 'Christina', and acquired a gold chain. It is from him we learn that in the dispute as to the relative merits of ancients and moderns, Christina was for the ancients; speaking of philosophy, she declared that "les sottises anciennes valaient bien les nouvelles." It was to him that she made one of her wittiest mots. She used to hold a literary assembly in her Academy every Thursday. "At that time", says Ménage, "my assemblies were on Wednesday. Learning this[,] the Queen wrote to me, 'Ma Joviale est très humble serviteur de votre Mercuriale.'[" "]I have always thought", he adds, "this could not have come from her, it is too French for a stranger." But Huet avers that he had never known any one like Christina for the "swiftness of a keen and fiery wit." To these is to be added Pascal, who sent her his "Roulette" machine, with an explanatory letter; the English painter, Cooper, who came to her Court; the learned Manasseh Ben Israel, a Portuguese Jew, a wise and excellent man, who offered to procure her Hebrew books for her library, and dedicated to her his work 'Conciliador.' He went to England and was well received by Cromwell, and perhaps may have had influence on that great man's tolerance of Jews. Cromwell's secretary, Andrew Marvell, wrote a panegyrical ode upon Christina, and Milton's eulogy, in the 'Second Defence', is well known. Christina is said to have disgusted Saumaise by praising Milton's 'Defence' to him. Milton declares her in the second part "fit to govern not only Europe[,] but the world."
These names and instances, many of them men whose praise was worth having, are a sufficient proof of Christina's wide-spread fame and various scientific interests. Among those who adorned her Court were but few natives of Sweden, yet we must not omit Stiernhielm, a universal genius, "at once philosopher, geometer, philologist and poet", whom she protected from the bigots of the day, and the two Rudbecks, father and son; the letter, Olaus, celebrated especially for his discovery of the lymphatic vessels, and his 'Atlantica', a work of Northern antiquities, of vast learning and great value for its time, though its patriotic zeal was open to ridicule, as readers of Gibbon will remember. Other Swedish names there are, but of little note; in point of fact the national element was conspicuous mostly for its absence; the splendour of the Court was a costly exotic.
Christina took especial pains to collect books and manuscripts for her libraries, as we have noticed. She writes to Sarrau in April, 1651, who was negotiating to buy for her the celebrated De Mesmes library (the only one, says Lacroix, that could bear comparison with that of De Thou), that she fears some one may have stolen a Varro which ought to be there, but cannot find in the catalogue, and bids him have an eye to it. She commissioned one Job Ludolphe, who knew twenty-two languages, to go to Rome and buy and bring to Sweden all MSS. relating to it carried thither at the Reformation, though he did not succeed, as they had already been conveyed to Poland. Nicolas Heinsius and Isaac Vossius were also sent on the same mission; the former to Italy, where he met with great success: "the Italians began to complain that ships were laden with the spoils of their libraries, and that all their best aids to learning were carried away from them to the remotest north." Heinsius, in a letter to the Queen, informs her that her name was venerated in Italy. Vossius went to Holland, France, and Germany, spending enormous sums in purchasing all the MSS. he could find. Her own library was much enriched by the sale of Mazarin's, as well as by spoils from various places taken in the war, as Wurzburg, Olmütz, Bremen, Prague. Vossius even sold her his own library for 20,000 florins, reserving to himself the superintendence and 5000 florins a year, besides lodging and board at Court. "The Royal Library", wrote Huet in 1653, "is stuffed full, four large rooms won't hold it." But the dishonesty of savans such as Vossius, who abused the confidence of the Queen, reduced it to a great extent. Heinsius says, in 1654, that the French had pillaged the library, and that Vossius had carried off rich but scandalous spoils to Holland with him; of the 762 MSS. which were sold after his death to the University of Leyden, doubtless most were Christina's. What became of her remaining library after her own death will be seen in the sequel.
The intellectual interests of the "Northern Pallas" are summed up in a letter which Naudé wrote to Gassendi in October, 1652: "Of the Queen I can say without flattery, that in the conversations which she often holds with MM. Bochart, Bourdelot, Du Fresne, and myself, she maintains her part better than any one of us: I shall not lie if I tell you that her genius is altogether extraordinary, for she has seen, read, and knows all. ... To say truth, I am sometimes afraid lest the common saying should be verified in her, that short is the life, and rare the old age of those who surpass the common limits. ... don't suppose she is only learned in books, for she is so equally in painting, architecture, sculpture, medals, antiquities, and all curiosities: there is not a cunning workman in these arts but she has him fetched: there are as good workers in wax, enamel, engravers, singers, players, dancers, here as will be found anywhere. ... She has a gallery of statues, bronze and marble, medals of gold, silver, and bronze, pieces of ivory, amber, coral, worked crystal, steel mirrors, clocks and tables, bas-reliefs and other things of the kind; richer I have never seen even in Italy; finally a great quantity of pictures; in short[,] her mind is open to all impressions." This was not more than the truth; that her ardour in all these subjects was based on a genuine artistic taste was shown in the eagerness to gain possession of her collections after her death.
She has been very unfortunate, in that all her efforts could do little for Swedish culture, which did not meet her half-way. She laboured hard to promote the growth of learning and letters in Sweden. She took care to commit the various branches of study to the hands of learned professors who came from abroad. She frequently went to Upsala to encourage the speeches and dissertations; she went, for instance, to hear Terserus and Stiernhielm dispute on the Hebrew text of Scripture. At Dorpat she built a college, and gave it a library; at Abo in Finland (She gave the Finns their first translation of the Bible [sic].) she increased the college founded by her father in 1627, and made it a University similar to that at Upsala, endowing it with money and books: during her reign six other colleges were established at other places. She sent books taken from Olmütz and Prague to the University of Upsala. She aided many students to go abroad and study at foreign universities, and even sent some to Arabia to study in the East. She would allow no one to be doctor in philosophy who had not twice held open disputation on definite theses. She ordered, that no theological professor should at the same time be professor in philosophy. She caused a certain Dutchman to come and establish a good printing press in Stockholm. She wrote to Forsius, enjoining him to publish his physical works in Swedish rather than Latin, in order to be understood of the people.
All this proves very sufficiently that Christina was genuinely anxious to do what in her lay to raise the standard of learning in Sweden, and worked hard to that end; was it her fault if she effected but little? Her attempts, though productive of small results, have nothing whatever in common with the empty self-regarding patronage and posing of Louis XIV.; she never tried to display her learning, though it was said of her that she was the only learned man in Sweden: she never set any store by the flattery that was poured on her, and though the tendency of the age was to venerate learning too much in and for itself, she could despise pedantry without ceasing to respect knowledge. At a time when all the European states were engaged in revolutionary struggles or unprofitable wars, she was trying hard to improve her own in the arts of peace, which she not only gained, but preserved for Sweden, by her energy and persevering tact. And yet when she abdicated she was only twenty-eight [sic]! If we except Cromwell, what contemporary sovereign, or minister, is worthy to stand beside her? We may candidly allow her one great defect, her extravagance, but it would be well for the world if it had always had rulers like Christina.
Above: Kristina.
Notes: Dorpat is the old German and Swedish name for the Estonian city of Tartu.
Åbo is the Swedish name for the Finnish city of Turku, in the Southwest Finland/Finland Proper region.
Gaulmin = Gilbert Gaulmin (1585-1665), a French magistrate, scholar and Orientalist.
Maussac = Philippe Jacques de Maussac (1590-1650), a French publisher.
anon = soon; in a little while; at another time.
Janua Linguarum reserrata had been one of Kristina's Latin schoolbooks as of February 1638, two months after she turned eleven; perhaps the memories of reading and studying it with Johannes Matthiæ inspired Kristina to bring its author to Sweden to reform the schools in its image.
The word "Lapp" is an antiquated and now offensive term for the indigenous Sámi people. To not acknowledge offensive language towards peoples is to ignore it and deny its offensive qualities. The Sámi live in the north of Sweden as well as in the north of Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia, although in the distant past their range in Norway and Sweden might have extended further south. They are distantly related to the Finns, the Estonians, the Hungarians and the various Balto-Finnic, Finno-Ugric and Uralic peoples of Latvia, Russia and Siberia.
dumb = mute.
aver = to assert the truth of something, to affirm something with confidence; to declare something in a positive manner.
Olmütz is the German name for the city of Olomouc in what is now the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic.
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