The Swedes remembered that Christina was the daughter of their greatest king, and that, apart from personal scandals, she had ruled them well; and so they let her go regretfully and accepted her cousin as their king.  Christina, on her side, went joyfully and in the spirit of a grand adventuress.  With a numerous suite she entered Germany, and then stayed for a year at Brussels, where she renounced Lutheranism.  After this she traveled slowly into Italy, where she entered Borne on horseback, and was received by the Pope, Alexander VII., who lodged her in a magnificent palace, accepted her conversion, and baptized her, giving her a new name, Alexandra.

In Rome she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living sumptuously, even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly, partly because the Swedes disliked her change of religion.  She was surrounded by men of letters, with whom she amused herself, and she took to herself a lover, the Marquis Monaldeschi.  She thought that at last she had really found her true affinity, while Monaldeschi believed that he could count on the queen’s fidelity.

He was in attendance upon her daily, and they were almost inseparable.  He swore allegiance to her and thereby made himself one of the subjects over whom she had absolute power.  For a time he was the master of those intense emotions which, in her, alternated with moods of coldness and even cruelty.

Monaldeschi was a handsome Italian, who bore himself with a fine air of breeding.  He understood the art of charming, but he did not know that beyond a certain time no one could hold the affections of Christina.

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.  They, in return, would speak of Christina’s deformed shoulder and skinny frame; but the king was very gracious to her and invited her to his hunting-palace at Fontainebleau.

While she had been winning triumphs of sarcasm the infatuated Monaldeschi had gradually come to suspect, and then to know, that his royal mistress was no longer true to him.  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.  Again, imitating the hand and seal of Sentanelli, he set in circulation a series of the most scandalous and insulting letters about Christina.  By this treacherous trick he hoped to end the relations between his rival and the queen; but when the letters were carried to Christina she instantly recognized their true source.  She saw that she was betrayed by her former favorite and that he had taken a revenge which might seriously compromise her.