been accused of avarice, and seemingly with justice: yet if we reflect that, being an indigent foreigner himself, he married seven nieces to French noblemen of the first distinction, and left his nephew duke of Nevers, we shall perhaps be inclined partly to forgive him. So many matches could not be formed without money-and the pride of raising one's family is no contemptible passion. He had the singular honour of extending the limits of the French monarchy, while France was distracted by intestine hostilities; and of twice restoring peace to the greater part of Europe, after the longest and most bloody wars it had ever known. Nor must we forget his attention to the Spanish succession, which has since made the house of Bourbon so formidable to its neighbours, and is a striking proof of his political foresight. His leading maxim was, that force ought never to be employed but in default of other means; and his perfect knowledge of mankind, the most essential of all mental acquisitions for a minister, enabled him often to accomplish his views without it. When absolutely necessary, we have seen him employ it with effect. The affairs of Germany and the northern crowns now claim our attention. That tranquillity which the peace of Westphalia had restored to Germany, continued unmolested till the death of Ferdinand III. in 1657, when an interregnum of five months ensued, and the diet was violently agitated in regard to the choice of a successor. At last, however, his son Leopold was raised to the Imperial throne; for although jealousies prevailed among some of the electors, on account of the am "have drawn the principal inhabitants into his camp, and there have put "them to death,, Mazarine would have got possession of the place two or "three years later, by corrupting the magistrates, and sowing discord among the citizens. Cardinal Richelieu, in imitation of Alexander the Great, "laid a boom across the harbour, and entered Rochelle as a conqueror ; but had the sea been a little more turbulent, or the English a little more diligent, Rochelle might have been saved, and Richelieu called a rash "and inconsiderate projector!" Siecle, tom. i. c. v. bition of the house of Austria, the greater number were convinced of the propriety of such a choice, in order to prevent more alarming dangers. While the Turks remained masters of Buda, the French in possession of Alsace, and the Swedes of Pomerania, a powerful emperor seemed necessary17. The first measure of Leopold's reign was the finishing of an alliance, which his father had begun, with Poland and Denmark, in opposition to Sweden. But we shall have occasion to notice the events to which this alliance gave birth, in tracing the history of the northern kingdoms. Sweden had been raised to the highest pitch of military reputation by the victories of Gustavus Adolphus, who was considered as the champion of the protestant cause; but who gratified his own ambition and love of glory, at the same time that he protected the liberties of Germany, which his immature death only perhaps prevented him from overturning. And his daughter Christina, no less ambitious of fame, though neither in the camp nor cabinet, immortalized her short reign, by declaring herself the patroness of learning and the polite arts. She drew to her court Grotius, Vossius, Des Cartes, and other eminent men, whom she liberally rewarded. But her studies, in general, were too antiquated and abstract, to give lustre to her character as a woman; and by occupying too much of her attention, they were injurious to her reputation as a queen. She acceded to the peace of Westphalia, as I have formerly had occasion to observe, from a desire of indulging her passion for study, rather than out of any regard to the happiness of Sweden or the repose of Europe. That peace lightened the cares of government! but they were still too weighty for Christina. "I think I see the Devil!" said she, "when my secretary "enters with his dispatches18" 17. Annal. del'Emp. tom. ii. 8. Mem. de Christine. In order to enable the queen to pursue her literary amusements, without disadvantage to the state, the Senate of Sweden proposed, that she should marry her cousin, Charles Gustavus, prince Palatine of Deux Ponts, for whom she had been designed from her infancy. But although this prince appears to have been a favourite, and Christina's conduct. proves that she was by no means insensible to the passion of the sexes, like our Elizabeth, she did not choose to give herself a master. She prevailed, however, with the states to declare Charles Gustavus her successor, a measure by which she kept herself at liberty, secured the tranquillity of Sweden, and repressed the ambition of some great families, who might, in case of her death, otherwise have offered pretensions to the crown. A. D. 1650. But the Swedes, among whom refinement had made little progress, but whose martial spirit was now at its height, and among whom policy was well understood, could not bear to see the daughter of the great Gustavus devote her time and her talents solely to the study of dead languages; to the disputes about vortexes, innate ideas, and other unavailing speculations; to a taste for medals, statucs, pictures, and public spectacles, in contempt of the nobler cares of royalty. And they were yet more displeased to find the resources of the kingdom exhausted, in what they considered as inglorious pursuits and childish amusements. An universal discontent arose, and Christina was again pressed to marry. The disgust occasioned by this importunity first suggested to her the idea of quitting the throne. She accordingly signified her intention of resigning, in a letter to Charles Gustavus, and of surrendering her crown in full senate. But Charles, trained in dissimulation, and fearing the queen had laid a snare for him, rejected her proposals, and prayed that God and Sweden might long preserve her majesty. Perhaps he flattered himself, that the senate would accept her resignation, and appoint him to the government, in recompence for his modesty; but he was deceived, if these were his expectations, The senate and the chief officers of state state, headed by the chancellor Oxenstiern, waited upon the queen. And whether Christina had a mind to alarm her discontented subjects, and establish herself more firmly on the throne, by pretending to desert it, or whatever else might be her motive for resigning; in a word, whether having renounced the crown out of vanity, which dictated most of her actions, she was disposed to resume it out of caprice: she submitted, or pretended to submit, to the importunity of her subjects and successor, and consented to reign, on condition that she should be no more pressed to marry19. Finding it impossible, however, to reconcile her literary pursuits, or more properly her love of ease, and her romantic turn of mind, with the duties of her station, Christina finally resigned her crown in 1654; and Charles GustaA. D. 1654. vus ascended the throne of Sweden, under the name of Charles X. After despoiling the palace of every thing curious or valuable, she left her capital and her kingdom, as the abodes of ignorance and barbarism. She travelled through Germany in men's clothes; and having a design of fixing her residence at Rome, that she might have an opportunity of contemplating the precious remains of antiquity, she embraced the catholic religion at Brussels, and solemnly renounced Lutheranism at Inspruck. The catholics considered this conversion as a great triumph, and the protestants were not a little mortified at the defection of so celebrated a woman; but both without reason; for the queen of Sweden, who had an equal contempt for the peculiarities of the two religions, meant only to conform, in appearance, to the tenets of the people among whom she intended to live, in order to enjoy more agreeably the pleasures of social intercourse. Of this her letters afford sufficient evidence, to silence the cavillers of either party. But Christina, like most sovereigns who have quitted a throne, in order to escape from the cares of royalty, found 19. Puffend, lib. vi. Arckenholta, tom. i, 20. Mem. de Christine. herself herself no less uneasy in private life: so true it is, that happiness depends on the mind, not on the condition! she soon discovered, that a queen without power was a very insignificant character in Italy, and is supposed to have repented of her resignation. But, however that may be, it is certain she became tired of her situation, and made two journies into France; where she was received with much respect by the learned, whom she had pensioned and flattered, but with little attention by the polite, especially of her own sex. Her masculine air and libertine conversation kept women of delicacy at a distance. Nor does she seem to have desired their acquaintance: for when, on her first appearance, some ladies were eager to pay their civilities to her, "What," said she" make these women so fond "of me? Is it because I am so like a man?" The celebrated Ninon de l'Enclos, whose wit and beauty gave her the power of pleasing to the most advanced age, and who was no less distinguished by the multiplicity of her amours than the singularity of her manner of thinking, was the only woman in France whom Christina honoured with any particular mark of her esteem. She loved the free conversation of men; or of women, who, like herself, were above vulgar restraints. A. D. 1656. The modest women in France, however, repaid Christina's contempt with ridicule. And happy had it been for her character, had she never excited, in the mind of either sex, a more disagreeable emotion: but that was soon succeeded by those of detestation and horror. As if not only sovereignty but despotism, had been attached to her person, in a fit of libidinous jealousy, she ordered Monaldeschi, her favourite, to be assassinated in the great gallery of Fontainbleau, and almost in her own presence22. Yet the woman, who thus terminated an amour by a murder, did not want her apologists among the learned: and this atroci A. D. 1657. 21. Ibid. 22. D'Alembert, Mem. de Cbrist. ous |