measure her mind boldly against the greatest
minds of the age wherever she went. So far,
the interest excited by her character and her
adventures is of the most picturesquely-
attractive kind. There is something strikingly
new in the spectacle of a young queen who
prefers the pursuit of knowledge to the
possession of a throne, and who barters a royal
birthright for the privilege of being free.
Unhappily, the portrait of Christina cannot
be painted throughout in bright colours only.
It is not pleasant to record of her that, when
her travels brought her to Rome, she
abandoned the religion for which her father fought
and died. It is still less agreeable to add,
that she freed herself from other restraints
besides the restraint of royalty, and that, if
she was mentally distinguished by her capacities,
she was also morally disgraced by her
vices and her crimes.

The events in the strange life of Christina—
especially those which are connected with
her actions and adventures in the character
of a queen-errant—present the freshest and
the most ample materials for a biography,
which might be regarded in England as a
new contribution to our historical literature.
Within the necessarily limited space at our
command in these columns, it is impossible
to follow her, with sufficient attention to
details, through the adventures which
attended her travelling career. One, however,
among the many strange and startling
passages in her life, may profitably be introduced
in this place. The events of which the narrative
is composed, throw light, in many ways,
on the manners, habits, and opinions of a
past age, and they can, moreover, be presented
in this place in the very words of an eye-
witness who beheld them two centuries ago.

The scene is Paris, the time is the close of
the year sixteen hundred and fifty-seven, the
persons are the wandering Queen Christina,
her grand equerry, the Marquis Monaldeschi,
and Father le Bel of the Convent of Fontainebleau,
the witness whose testimony we are
shortly about to cite.

Monaldeschi, as his name implies, was an
Italian by birth. He was a handsome,
accomplished man, refined in his manners,
supple in his disposition, and possessed of the
art of making himself eminently agreeable in
the society of women. With these personal
recommendations, he soon won his way to
the favour of Queen Christina. Out of the
long list of her lovers, not one of the many
whom she encouraged caught so long and
firm a hold of her capricious fancy as
Monaldeschi. The intimacy between them
probably took its rise, on her side at least, in as
deep a sincerity of affection as it was in
Christina's nature to feel. On the side of
the Italian, the connection was prompted
solely by ambition. As soon as he had risen
to the distinction and reaped all the advantages
of the position of chief favourite in the
queen's court, he wearied of his royal mistress,
and addressed his attentions secretly to a
young Roman lady, whose youth and beauty
powerfully attracted him, and whose fatal
influence over his actions ultimately led to
his ruin and his death.

After endeavouring to ingratiate himself
with the Roman lady, in various ways,
Monaldeschi found that the surest means of
winning her favour lay in satisfying her
malicious curiosity on the subject of the
private life and the secret frailties of Queen
Christina. He was not a man who was
troubled by any scrupulous feelings of honour
when the interests of his own intrigues
happened to be concerned; and he shamelessly
took advantage of the position that he held
towards Christina, to commit breaches of
confidence of the most inexcusably ungrateful
and the most meanly infamous kind. He
gave to the Roman lady the series of the
queen's letters to himself, which contained
secrets that she had revealed to him in the
fullest confidence of his worthiness to be
trusted; more than this, he wrote letters
of his own to the new object of his
addresses, in which he ridiculed the queen's
fondness for him, and sarcastically described
her smallest personal defects with a heartless
effrontery which the most patient and long-
suffering of women would have found it
impossible to forgive. While he was thus
privately betraying the confidence that had
been reposed in him, he was publicly affecting
the most unalterable attachment and the
most sincere respect for the queen.

For some time this disgraceful deception
proceeded successfully. But the hour of the
discovery was appointed, and the instrument
of effecting it was a certain cardinal who was
desirous of supplanting Monaldeschi in the
queen's favour. The priest contrived to get
possession of the whole correspondence which
had been privately placed in the hands of the
Roman lady, including, besides Christina's
letters, the letters which Monaldeschi had
written in ridicule of his royal mistress.
The whole collection of documents was
enclosed by the cardinal in one packet, and
was presented by him, at a private audience,
to the queen.

It is at this critical point of the story that
the testimony of the eye-witness whom we
propose to quote, begins. Father Le Bel was
present at the fearful execution of the queen's
vengeance on Monaldeschi, and was furnished
with copies of the whole correspondence
which had been abstracted from the possession
of the Roman lady. Having been
trusted with the secret, he is wisely and
honourably silent throughout his narrative
on the subject of Monaldeschi's offence. Such
particulars of the Italian's baseness and
ingratitude as have been presented here, have
been gathered from the somewhat contradictory
reports which were current at the time,
and which have been preserved by the old