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Updated: June 1, 2025
However, after she had quarreled with various cardinals and decided to leave Rome for a while, Monaldeschi accompanied her to France, where she had an immense vogue at the court of Louis XIV. She attracted wide attention because of her eccentricity and utter lack of manners. It gave her the greatest delight to criticize the ladies of the French court their looks, their gowns, and their jewels.
He was confused by the sight of them and by the incisive words in which Christina showed how he had both insulted her and had tried to shift the blame upon Sentanelli. Monaldeschi broke down completely. He fell at the queen's feet and wept piteously, begging for pardon, only to be met by the cold answer: "You are my subject and a traitor to me. Marquis, you must prepare to die!"
Christina, much exasperated, sent a reply containing the following expressions: "MR. MAZARIN, Those who acquainted you with the details regarding Monaldeschi, my equerry, were very ill informed. Your proceeding ought not, however, to astonish me, silly as it is. But I should never have believed that either you or your haughty young master would have dared to exhibit the least resentment toward me.
You have all heard but too much of the bravo Abellino, the murderer of the Procurator Conari, and of my faithful counsellors Manfrone and Lomellino, and to whose dagger my illustrious guest the Prince of Monaldeschi has but lately fallen a victim.
No one knew in what quarter he was wandering; and it was during this absence that the so-long expected Prince of Monaldeschi arrived at Venice to claim Rosabella as his bride. His appearance, to which a month before Andreas looked forward with such pleasing expectation, now afforded but little satisfaction to the Doge.
Christina seized Monaldeschi, had him confessed and assassinated, and said, "I am the Queen of Sweden, in the palace of the King of France." There is the tyrant who conceals himself, like Tiberius; and the tyrant who displays himself, like Philip II. One has the attributes of the scorpion, the other those rather of the leopard. James II. was of this latter variety.
Besides observing mankind, I entered with redoubled zest upon the dissection and study of the words of the great dramatists. My attention had been turned to the story of Christine and the murder of Monaldeschi by an exquisite little bas-relief in the Salon; and reading up the history in the biographical dictionary, I saw that it held the possibility of a tremendous drama.
These winding and narrow passages recalled games, blindfolded eyes, hands feeling in the dark, suppressed laughter, blind man's buff, hide and seek, while, at the same time, they suggested memories of the Atrides, of the Plantagenets, of the Médicis, the brutal knights of Eltz, of Rizzio, of Monaldeschi; of naked swords, pursuing the fugitive flying from room to room.
"Abellino!" said Andreas advancing to the bravo, and extending his hand towards him. "I am not Abellino," replied he, smiling, while he pressed the Doge's hand respectfully to his lips "neither am I Flodoardo of Florence. I am by birth a Neapolitan, and by name Rosalvo. The death of my inveterate enemy the Prince of Monaldeschi makes it no longer necessary to conceal who I really am."
He had been supplanted in her favor by another Italian, one Sentanelli, who was the captain of her guard. Monaldeschi took a tortuous and roundabout revenge. He did not let the queen know of his discovery; nor did he, like a man, send a challenge to Sentanelli. Instead he began by betraying her secrets to Oliver Cromwell, with whom she had tried to establish a correspondence.
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