advanced, and asked me if I did not think it
was time to give Monaldeschi the finishing
stroke. I pushed the man violently away
from me, saying that I had no advice to
offer on the matter, and telling him that if I
had any orders to give, they would be for the
sparing of the Marquis's life, and not for the
hastening of his death. Hearing me speak
in those terms, the man asked my pardon,
and confessed that he had done wrong in
addressing me on the subject at all.

He had hardly finished making his excuses
to me, when the door of the gallery opened.
The unhappy Marquis hearing the sound,
raised himself from the floor, and, seeing
that the person who entered was the Queen's
chaplain, dragged himself along the gallery,
holding on by the tapestry that hung from
the walls, until he reached the feet of the
holy man. There, he whispered a few words
(as if he was confessing) to the chaplain,
who, after first asking my permission, gave
him absolution, and then returned to the
Queen.

As the chaplain closed the door, the man
who had struck the Marquis on the neck
stabbed him adroitly with a long narrow
sword in the throat, just above the edge of
the shirt of mail. Monaldeschi sank on his
right side, and spoke no more. For a quarter
of an hour longer he still breathed, during
which time I prayed by him, and exhorted
him as I best could. When the bleeding
from this last wound ceased, his life ceased
with it. It was then a quarter to four
o'clock. The death agony of the miserable
man had lasted, from the time of the Queen's
first pronouncing sentence on him, for nearly
three hours.

I said the De Profundis over his body.
While I was praying, the three men sheathed
their swords, and the chief of them rifled the
Marquis's pockets. Finding nothing on him
but a prayer-book and a small knife, the chief
beckoned to his companions, and they all
three marched to the door in silence, went
out, and left me alone with the corpse.

A few minutes afterwards I followed them,
to go and report what had happened to the
Queen. I thought her colour changed a little
when I told her that Monaldeschi was dead;
but those cold, clear eyes of her's never softened,
and her voice was still as steady and
firm, as when I first heard its tones on entering
the gallery that day. She spoke very
little, only saying to herself "He is dead, and
he deserved to die!" Then, turning to me,
she added, "Father, I leave the care of burying
him to you; and, for my own part, I will
charge myself with the expense of having
masses enough said for the repose of his
soul." I ordered the body to be placed in a
coffin, which I instructed the bearers to
remove to the churchyard on a tumbril, in
consequence of the great weight of the corpse,
of the misty rain that was falling, and of the
bad state of the roads. On Monday, the
twelfth of November, at a quarter to six in.
the evening, the Marquis was buried in the
parish church of Avon, near the font of holy
water. The next day the Queen sent one
hundred livres, by two of her servants, for
masses for the repose of his soul.

Thus ends the extraordinary narrative of
Father Le Bel. It is satisfactory to record,
as some evidence of the progress of humanity,
that the barbarous murder, committed under
the sanction and authority of Queen Christina,
which would have passed unnoticed in
the feudal times, as an ordinary and legitimate
exercise of a sovereign's authority over
a vassal, excited, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, the utmost disgust and
horror throughout Paris. The prime minister
at that period, Cardinal Mazarin (by no
means an over-scrupulous man, as all readers
of French history know), wrote officially to
Christina, informing her that "a crime so
atrocious as that which had just been
committed under her sanction, in the Palace of
Fontainebleau, must be considered as a
sufficient cause for banishing the Queen of
Sweden from the court and dominions of his
sovereign, who, in common with every honest
man in the kingdom, felt horrified at the
lawless outrage which had just been committed
on the soil of France."

To this letter Queen Christina sent the
following answer, which, as a specimen of
spiteful effrontery, has probably never been
matched:

MONSIEUR MAZARIN,—Those who have communicated
to you the details of the death of my equerry,
Monaldeschi, knew nothing at all about it. I think it
highly absurd that you should have compromised so
many people for the sake of informing yourself about
one simple fact. Such a proceeding on your part,
ridiculous as it is, does not, however, much astonish
me. What I am amazed at, is, that you and the king
your master should have dared to express disapproval
of what I have done.

Understand, all of you—servants and masters, little
people and great—that it was my sovereign pleasure to
act as I did. I neither owe, nor render, an account of
my actions to any one,—least of all, to a bully like
you.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

It may be well for you to know, and to report to
any one whom you can get to listen to you, that
Christina cares little for your court, and less still for
you. When I want to revenge myself, I have no need
of your formidable power to help me. My honour
obliged me to act as I did; my will is my law, and
you ought to know how to respect it. . . Understand,
if you please, that wherever I choose to live,
there I am Queen; and that the men about me,
rascals as they may be, are better than you and the
myrmidons whom you keep in your service.

myrmidons whom you keep in your service.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

Take my advice, Mazarin, and behave yourself for
the future so as to merit my favour; you cannot, for
your own sake, be too anxious to deserve it. Heaven
preserve you from venturing on any more disparaging
remarks about my conduct! I shall hear of them, if
I am at the other end of the world, for I have friends