Source:
Memoirs of celebrated female sovereigns, volume 1, pages 83 to 87, by Anna Brownell Jameson, 1831; original at the University of Toronto
The biography:
She was received on her return to the Papal Court with a great display of external respect; and as she suffered continual embarrassment from the want of money and her careless habits, the Pope at length granted her a yearly allowance of 12,000 crowns, and appointed the Cardinal Azzolini to be the comptroller of her household. While Azzolini was in fact a kind of spy on all her proceedings, he contrived to insinuate himself completely into her confidence. He had a very pleasing person, bland and polished manners, a lively wit, and sufficient learning to be able to appear much more learned than he really was. These qualities imposed on Christina: although he was false, superficial, interested and avaricious, he obtained an influence over her mind, which he knew how to improve to his own advantage, and which ended only with her life.
Cardinal Azzolini managed her affairs with prudence and economy, and she was thenceforth spared a repetition of those vexations and degrading expedients which had so frequently lowered her in the eyes of the Italians. Notwithstanding the philosophical contempt she sometimes affected for all outward state, she entertained at Rome a numerous and royal train: she was sometimes reduced to the necessity of pledging her jewels, plate, medals &c., for the support of her household, merely because on public occasions she could not bear to be eclipsed in splendour by the Italian nobles, whom she affected to despise.
Although Christina accepted of the pension granted by the Pope, and had some reason to be grateful for such a seasonable mark of his beneficence, they were not therefore better friends. Alexander was weak, artificial, trifling; Christina was careless, petulant, and haughty; continual subjects of discontent arose between them, which it required all the subtle and insinuating genius of Azzolini to set right. Her journey to France, and the number of French and Spaniards entertained in her suite, had excited the jealousy of the Papal Court, and she was continually watched, and contradicted about trifles. On one occasion, she required permission for two Frenchmen of rank to view the Castle of St. Angelo, which was refused: Christina sent back the messenger with this reply: "Tell the Holy Father that I am not less the daughter of the Great Gustavus!" There was indeed a time when the very sound of that mighty name had shaken to its foundation the spiritual and temporal power of the Roman Pontiff, and made his tiara tremble on his palsied head: — that time was past; and Alexander only smiled at the impotent sarcasm from one whom he held in dependence upon his bounty. Christina had negociated a marriage between her Major Domo, Santinelli, (the same who had stabbed Monaldeschi [sic],) and the Duchess de Ceri, a noble and beautiful Roman heiress. The Pope intimated his disapproval — Christina persisted: the Pope interfering in a summary manner, shut the young duchess up in a convent, and ordered Santinelli to leave Rome. The queen then dismissed all the Italians from her train, quitted the Palazzo Mazarin, and took up her lodgings in a convent. Here she found herself under the continual espionage of the ecclesiastics. She fretted with inward impatience, but she was in a situation where remonstrance was useless, complaint degrading, and resistance dangerous. It was necessary to study a new and bitter lesson; to be quiet, and to submit. In the midst of these contentions, she maintained a certain appearance of respect and decorum, mingled several times in the public processions, and begged and received the benediction of his Holiness. As if instigated by the spirit of contradiction, she took some pains at this time to conciliate the good will of the Romans: she was liberal, magnificent, and courteous, in all her actions, and defeated the attempts to intimidate or to irritate her by the most resolute self-control.
It must be remarked as a part of Christina's character, or rather of that inconsistency which bordered on disease, that with her no mode of conduct, no tastes or inclinations, or aims, or pursuits, were permanent. Her love of literature and art, for which, it is said, she sacrificed her throne, had the appearance of a caprice taken up from time to time; and for a long period together she would devote herself to the most trifling amusements; — to the dreams of alchemy, or astrology, or to political intrigues.
Above: Kristina.
Above: Anna Brownell Jameson.
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