Source:
Christina, Queen of Sweden, pages 214 to 227, by Francis William Bain, 1890; original at the University of Connecticut Library
Bulstrode Whitelocke's diary entry of January 21/31 (Old Style), 1654 is here:
Pierre Hector Chanut's letter of January 31/February 10 (New Style), 1654 to Kristina is here:
Her reply to him, written on February 17 or 18/27 or 28 (New Style), 1654, is here:
Chanut's reply to her, of February 20/March 2 (New Style), 1654, is here:
The account:
CHAPTER VI.
ON January 21, 1653 [sic], Christina sent for Whitelocke, and drawing her stool nearer to him, said, "I shall surprise you with something I intend to communicate to you, but it must be under secrecy."
Whitelocke: "Madam, we that have been versed in the affairs of England, do not use to be surprised with the discourse of a young lady."
The Queen: "Sir, this it is. I have it in my thoughts and resolution to quit the Crown of Sweden."
Whitelocke: "I suppose your Majesty is pleased only to droll with your humble servant?"
The Queen: "It is my love to the people which causeth me to think of providing a better governor for them than a poor woman can be. And it is somewhat of love to myself, to please my own fancy by private retirement."
Whitelocke: "With your Majesty's leave, I shall tell you a story of an old English gentleman" [who was persuaded to hand over his estate during his lifetime to his son: all things being prepared for signing the agreement]. "The father, as is much used, was taking tobacco in the better room, the parlour, where his rheum caused him to spit much, which offended the son; and because there was much company, he desired his father to take the tobacco in the kitchen, and to spit there, which he obeyed. All things being ready, the son calls his father to come and seal the writings. The father said his mind was changed.... because he was resolved to spit in the parlour as long as he lived. And so I hope will a wise young lady."
The Queen: "Your story is very apt to our purpose, and the application proper to keep the crown upon my head as long as I live; but to be quit of it, rather than to keep it, I shall think to be to spit in the parlour."
Christina's determination to abdicate was so closely connected with her change of faith, that a full examination of her motives has been postponed till now, although in strictness it was necessary for the proper understanding of her previous conduct. At the time of the conversation with Whitelocke[,] the rumour of her intended abdication had got about, and was causing much disquiet in Swedish political circles. She did not tell Whitelocke, however, her real reason, and few people had any knowledge of what was passing in her mind; of these few, one was Chanut. In January, 1654, being at that time ambassador at the Hague, he wrote to her endeavouring to dissuade her. Christina sent him the following reply: —
"Westeras, Feb. 28, 1654.
I have told you before the reasons which have obliged me to persist in my design of abdicating. You know that this fancy has lasted long with me, and it is only after having pondered on it for eight years that I have determined to carry it out. It is at least five since I informed you of my purpose, and I then saw that it was only your sincere regard and the interest you took in my fortunes that compelled you to oppose me, in spite of the reasons you could not condemn, however keenly you set yourself to dissuade me. It pleased me to see that you found nothing in the thought that was unworthy of me. You know what I told you on this matter, the last time I had the satisfaction of conversing with you about it. In so long a course of time nothing has happened to alter me. I have determined all my actions with reference to this end, and have brought them to this final point, without hesitating now that I am ready to finish my part, and go behind the curtain. I care not as to the Plaudite. I know that the scenes I have played in could not have been composed according to the ordinary dramatic laws. With difficulty will any strong, masculine, or vigorous touches therein please. I leave it to every man to judge it according to his lights: I can deprive no one of his liberty herein, nor would I even if I could. I know that there are few who will pass a favourable criticism on it, and I am convinced that you will be of those few. The rest are ignorant of my reasons and my humour, since I have never declared myself to any one except you, and one other friend, whose soul is great and elevated enough to judge it as you do. Sufficit unus, sufficit nullus. I despise the rest, and should do honour to any one of the herd whom I should find ridiculous enough to amuse myself with. Those who consider this action in the light of common every-day maxims, will doubtless condemn it, but I will never take the trouble to make my apology to them. And in the fulness of the leisure which I am preparing for myself, I shall never be idle enough to remember them. I shall pass it in examining my past life and correcting my errors without either astonishment or repentance. What pleasure shall I not find in recollecting that I have joyfully done good to humanity, and punished those that deserved punishment. I shall find consolation in never having made any person guilty who was not so already, and even in having spared those who were. I have placed the welfare of the State above all other considerations, I have sacrificed all cheerfully to its interests, and have nothing to reproach myself with in its administration. I have possessed without pride, and resign without difficulty. After all this, do not fear for me. I am in safety, and my good is not in Fortune's power: I am happy, whatever occurs:
Sum tamen, O superi, felix: nullique potestas
Hoc auferre Deo.
"Aye, I am so, more than any one, and will always be: I have no fear of that Providence of which you speak to me. Omnia sunt propitia. Let Providence take it upon itself to settle my fortunes, and I will submit with that respect and resignation which I owe to its decrees: let it leave the direction of my conduct to myself, and I will employ any such faculties as have been granted to me in making myself happy. And I shall be so as long as I am persuaded that I have nothing to fear from God or man. I shall employ all the rest of my life in familiarising myself with these thoughts, in fortifying my soul, and observing from the haven the troubles of those who are tossed about in life by the storms that one suffers therein, for want of having applied their minds to these meditations. Am I not to be envied in my present condition? Beyond doubt I should find many enviers if my happiness were known. You love me, however, well enough not to envy me, and I deserve it, since I am honest enough to admit that I have got some of these sentiments from you: I learned them in conversations with you, and I hope to cultivate them some day with you during my leisure. I am certain that you cannot break your word, and will not cease in these altered circumstances to remain my friend, since I am abandoning nothing that is worthy of your regard. I will, in whatever condition I may be found, preserve my friendship for you; and you will see that no changes will ever be able to alter the views in which I glory. You know all this, and you are doubtless of opinion that the best pledge I can give you of myself is to tell you that I will always be
"CHRISTINA."
In answer to this[,] Chanut wrote expressing his approval of her resolve, yet reminding her that the world holds as defects those virtues it is incapable of noticing: he promises always to bear her witness that her first and strongest motive has been the good of her subjects and the safety of the State; yet the stroke is so bold that it will astonish all those who do not know that the retreat which her Majesty is preparing for herself is greater than all the kingdoms of the earth.
This 'retreat' is not merely an allusion to her intention of becoming a Catholic; it has a deeper meaning, which will become clear as we proceed. Some passages in Christina's 'Life' of herself will furnish the best starting-point. This strange fragment of autobiography is a kind of confession: it is addressed to the Deity, and reminds us of nothing so much as the 'Confessions' of S. Augustine. "This heart was Thine since it first beat in my breast; .... nothing can content me, nothing satisfy me, but Thou alone." Throughout, its spirit is analogous to that of a mystic quietism, and subjection of the individuality to the Divine will, which recalls Madame de Guion. "After the grace Thou hast shown me in introducing me to that admirable and mysterious solitude, where we neither seek nor find anything but Thee;" ... "Thou art all, and I am nothing;" ... "Make me worthy to possess Thee by that blind and entire resignation, which is Thy due." With this is combined a dislike to forms and common notions of religion. "All the respect, admiration, and love which I have had all my life for Thee, O Lord, never hindered me from being incredulous and little inclined to devotions; I believed nothing of the religion in which I was brought up. All that they told me seemed to me unworthy of You. I thought that men made You speak after their fashion, and that they wished to deceive me, and frighten me, so as to govern me in their own way. I hated mortally the long and frequent sermons of the Lutherans; but I knew that I must let them speak, and have patience, and conceal my secret thoughts. But when I was grown up a little, I formed a sort of religion in my fashion, whilst waiting for that Thou hast inspired me with, towards which I had naturally so strong an inclination. Thou knowest how often, in a language unknown to common persons, I have prayed to be lightened by Thy grace; how I made Thee a vow to obey Thee at the expense of my life and my fortune."
The peculiarity of her religious views finds its explanation in her character and the influences brought to bear on it during her education. She was naturally very reflective, and very secret; having lost her father, and being deprived of her mother very early, she was thrown back upon herself. Conversations preserved by Chanut show, too, that there was never any sympathy on religious subjects between her and Maria Eleanora, who could see no point of view but her own. The peculiar isolation of her position increased her natural bent to secrecy, and she early framed a sort of religion of her own. The influence of Matthiæ, whose great idea was a neglect of non-essential distinctions, prevented her from imbibing Lutheranism, to which she had, besides, an instinctive dislike: "I was never a Lutheran", she says herself. Between the general Lutheranism, the Calvinism of her uncle's house, and Matthiæ's syncretism, she became impressed with liberal opinions as to dogma, and all through her life she showed a toleration and a strong aversion to persecution, whether of Catholics at the beginning or of Protestants at the end, rare in that age. The point of contact between her own private, and as yet undefined, opinions, and Roman Catholicism, was almost certainly the idea of self-abnegation, especially as illustrated in abstaining from marriage. We have already mentioned her delight at hearing of the celibacy of the Catholics, when a child. The independence of her character made this "dedication of herself to Heaven" irresistible. Thus the attraction of the Church of Rome found a powerful support in her mind at the very outset.
But she did not arrive at her later half-Catholic, half-mystical doctrines all at once. The tendency of her early associations was increased by her studies, and the influence of the two most remarkable men with whom she came in contact, Chanut and Descartes. As to the first, she combined a strong taste for ancient philosophy with a fondness for the Fathers of the Church; while the former led her away from Lutheranism, the latter brought her nearer Rome. On the one hand, Cicero's remark that all religions might be false, while only one could be true, struck her forcibly, and as she is said to have been fond of Lucian, his 'Hermotimus', a practical commentary on Cicero's text, would be to her all that 'Bossuet's History of Protestant Variations' was to Gibbon. On the other hand, this sceptical tendency was corrected by the study of the Fathers and Christian antiquity; how could the mushroom sects of a day compare with the venerable Catholic Church, with all its great men, its martyrs, and, above all, its admirable virgins? Over and over again, in her collection of 'Maxims', does Christina emphasise this point of view.
Thus, while the cold and insufficient appeal of Protestantism to her intellect was undermined by her scepticism, in the traditions and æsthetic attractions of Rome she found something that met her emotional needs half-way. The contact between her own aspirations and the spirit of Catholicism, as she read its history, was like the junction of the electric coil, producing a spark; she felt that the truth must, if anywhere, be found here. And this line of argument was confirmed by her intercourse with Chanut and Descartes. Here were two men, at once the best and wisest she had ever seen, both Roman Catholics. We have no record of any conversations which she held with them; but even if Christina had not expressly stated that she owed her conversion to a great extent to Descartes, we do not need to look far for proofs of the close connection between his sceptical principles and Catholicism; an illustrious apologist has placed that position on a casuistical basis in his 'Grammar of Assent.'
The foolish and short-sighted assertions, due principally to the irritated Swedes, that Bourdelot and Pimentelli were mainly instrumental in her change of faith, which was either altogether insincere, or a refuge from frivolity and atheism, are entirely without foundation, and have been partly refuted in what has been said of Bourdelot. Christina was neither frivolous nor an atheist; further, any one who supposes that a man like Bourdelot would ever have influenced her anyhow, is infinitely far from a knowledge of her character. But fortunately, there is another and final disproof: "A lie about dates", said Bentley, "is the easiest of all lies to disclose." Her mind was made up long before she ever saw either of them. In 1648 she fell dangerously ill of a fever, and "it was in this sickness", she says, "I made a vow to quit all and become a Catholic, should God preserve my life." With this agrees what she says in her letter to Chanut, that it was eight years since she thought of her design, and five since she spoke to him about it. And as to the charge that her change of faith was insincere or indifferent, the story of the rest of her life will render that assertion simply ridiculous. The virulent and never-ending calumny and slander to which she was subjected all her life long have done her great injustice in this way, that they necessarily raised her anger and disdain, and caused her to assume an antagonistic and, as it were, self-conscious attitude in her religious views; there is a sort of "virtute me involvo" air very often in her letters, which springs really from her keen sense of wrong; it gives her an artifical and unnatural appearance which belies her greatly, for she was really full of bonhomie and kindly humour. But the mud thrown by her detractors has left its mark.
The determination to change her religion implied her abdication, for she could not become a Catholic and remain upon the throne of Sweden; legally and morally it was impossible. In working out her plans, the two points from which she started were, that she must become a Catholic, and that nothing should induce her to marry. The former was, she said at a later time, the unique foundation of the fortune of Charles. These two premisses being given, the conclusion was inevitable. Yet it was not without a hard struggle that she brought herself to resign; just before she did so, her usual serenity left her, and she appeared pale, silent, and disturbed. Certainly there were compensating advantages which lent a support to her design: she would escape from her cold climate and inappreciative Swedes, and gain in exchange the congenial atmosphere of Rome, Italy, and the sunny South — the prospect of wandering in new lands, and the glorious uncertainty of an adventurous step, were not for nothing to a character like hers. But the eternal statement of her enemies that her domestic difficulties drove her away, is not only entirely gratuitous, but betrays a lamentable want of insight into her nature. Christina was, like all her race, one who was rather attracted than repelled by danger and difficulty, and we might safely assert, without other evidence, that a motive of this kind would rather have kept her on the throne than forced her to leave it. But there is other positive evidence against it. Mr. Daniel Whistler, one of Whitelocke's assistants on the Swedish embassy, wrote to Cromwell in February, 1654, saying that Christina's proposed abdication is a puzzle to politicians, because her crown is not too heavy for her, and she is not reduced to any disagreeable extremity, except that want of money nearly always customary with generous princes; she has no declared enemy, and is universally esteemed among her people for her liberality, her wisdom, her moderation, and her temperance. Her action, he goes on to say, is as difficult to penetrate as the meaning of Parker's prophecies — they must wait for the event. This sober statement by an unprejudiced observer is worth all the idle declamation of her enemies, who must besides have read history to very little purpose, if they think that want of money is a sufficient reason for resigning a crown.
Above: Kristina.
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