Editing Christina, Queen of Sweden (section)

=== The death of Monaldeschi ===

On 15 October 1657 apartments were assigned to her at the [[Palace of Fontainebleau]], where she committed an action that stained her memory: the execution of marchese Gian Rinaldo [[Monaldeschi]], her [[master of the horse]] and formerly leader of the French party in Rome.<ref>{{cite web|first=Lyndon|last=Orr |url=http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-i-5.html|title=Famous Affinities of History: Queen Christina of Sweden and the Marquis Monaldeschi|publisher=Authorama|access-date=2012-03-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1OwTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA225|title=The Terrific Register: Or, Record of Crimes, Judgments, Providences, and Calamities ...|date=10 July 2017|publisher=Sherwood, Jones, and Company|access-date=10 July 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref> For two months she had suspected Monaldeschi of disloyalty; she secretly seized his correspondence, which revealed that he had betrayed her interests. Christina gave three packages of letters to Le Bel, a priest, to keep them for her in custody. Three days later, at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, she summoned Monaldeschi into the ''Galerie des Cerfs'', discussing the matter and letters with him. He insisted that betrayal should be punished with death. She was convinced that he had pronounced his own death sentence. After an hour or so Le Bel was to receive his confession. Both Le Bel and Monaldeschi entreated for mercy, but he was stabbed by her domestics – notably Ludovico Santinelli – in his stomach and in his neck. Wearing his [[coat of mail]], which protected him, he was chased around in an adjacent room before they finally succeeded in dealing him a fatal wound in his throat. "In the end, he died, confessing his infamy and admitting [Santinelli's] innocence, protesting that he had invented the whole fantastic story in order to ruin [him]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Court_of_Christina_of_Sweden_and_the_Later_Adventures_of_the_Queen_in_1000493935/217|title=Gribble, Francis (2013) The Court of Christina of Sweden, and the Later Adventures of the Queen in Exile, pp. 196–7.|access-date=10 July 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428064942/http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Court_of_Christina_of_Sweden_and_the_Later_Adventures_of_the_Queen_in_1000493935/217|archive-date=28 April 2016}}</ref>

[[File:Palace of Fontainebleau 030.jpg|thumb|Galerie des Cerfs]]

Father Le Bel was told to have him buried inside the church, and Christina, seemingly unfazed, paid an abbey to say a number of Masses for his soul. She "was sorry that she had been forced to undertake this execution, but claimed that justice had been carried out for his crime and betrayal.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M9gIAAAAQAAJ&q=monaldeschi+christina&pg=PA49|title=Christina's revenge; or, The fate of Monaldeschi: with other poems|first=John M.|last=Moffatt|date=10 July 2017|publisher=J.m.moffatt|access-date=10 July 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref>

[[Cardinal Mazarin|Mazarin]], who had sent her old friend Chanut, advised Christina to place the blame due to a brawl among courtiers, but she insisted that she alone was responsible for the act. She wrote to Louis XIV who two weeks later paid her a friendly visit without mentioning it. In Rome, people felt differently; Monaldeschi had been an Italian nobleman, murdered by a foreign barbarian with Santinelli as one of her executioners. The letters proving his guilt are gone; Christina left them with Le Bel and only he confirmed that they existed. Christina never revealed what was in the letters, but according to Le Bel, it is supposed to have dealt with her "amours", either with Monaldeschi or another person. She herself wrote her version of the story for circulation in Europe.

The killing of Monaldeschi in a French palace was legal, since Christina had judicial rights over the members of her court, as her vindicator [[Gottfried Leibniz]] claimed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Court_of_Christina_of_Sweden_and_the_Later_Adventures_of_the_Queen_in_1000493935/217|title=Gribble, Francis. (2013). pp. 196–7. The Court of Christina of Sweden, and the Later Adventures of the Queen in Exile.|access-date=10 July 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428064942/http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Court_of_Christina_of_Sweden_and_the_Later_Adventures_of_the_Queen_in_1000493935/217|archive-date=28 April 2016}}</ref> As her contemporaries saw it, Christina as queen had to emphasize right and wrong, and her sense of duty was strong. She continued to regard herself as queen regnant all her life.

She would gladly have visited England, but she received no encouragement from [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]] and stayed in Fontainebleau as nobody else offered her a place. [[Anne of Austria]], the mother of Louis XIV, was impatient to be rid of her cruel guest; Christina had no choice but to depart. She returned to Rome and dismissed Santinelli in 1659, claiming to be her ambassador in Vienna without her approval.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer/HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&pid=beinecke:castle&query=&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes&hlon=yes&big=&adv=&filter=&hitPageStart=&sortFields=&view=c01_5|title=Guide to the Italian Castle Archive|first1=Mark W.|last1=Rabuck|date=1 December 1997|access-date=10 July 2017}}</ref>