III.
May, 1608] DEATH OF CHARLES III.
The good citizens of Tortona were sorely distressed when they learnt that the remains of their beloved liege Lady were not to rest among them. But Christina's heart was in Lorraine, and her children laid her body in the crypt of the Cordeliers' church, in the grave of the husband whom she had loved so faithfully and so long. Twenty-one years later her ashes were removed with those of Duke Francis and his parents, Antoine and Renée, to the sumptuous chapel begun by her son Charles in 1607, and completed by his successors. The Rotonde, as it was called in Lorraine, was built on the model of the Cappella dei Principi, which the Duke's son-in-law, Ferdinand de' Medici, had lately reared in Florence, and was dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto. It was the work of a Tuscan architect, Gianbattista Stabili, and of Jean Ligier Richier, the son of the famous Lorraine sculptor, and was lined throughout with rich marbles and adorned with a mass of carving.[672] The cupola was added in 1632 by Simon Drouin, and the internal decorations were only completed in 1743, by order of the husband of Maria Theresa, afterwards the Emperor Francis I. By this Prince's pious care Latin inscriptions were placed over each sarcophagus, and the following words were carved on the tomb of Christina and her husband:
Francisco I. Lotharingiæ. Duci. Bari. Calabriæ. virtuti bellicæ. natus. quas. ei. mors. immatura. præripuit. laurus reddidit. nativa. benignitas. senilis. prudentia. semper. sibi similis. sapientia. mortuus. anno. MDXLV.
Christianæ. a. Dania. Ducis. memorati. thoro. sociatæ pupilli. Caroli. Ducis. rebus. regendis. strenua. existimatione supra. famam. maxima. fata. subiit. anno. MDXC.[673]
Christina's son, Charles III., died, after a long and prosperous reign, on the 14th of May, 1608, and was tenderly nursed during his last illness by his youngest daughter, Catherine, and his sister Dorothea. After her mother's death, the Duchess of Brunswick never left Lorraine again, and became the wife of a Burgundian noble, Marc de Rye, Marquis of Varembon.[674] She only survived her brother four years, and was buried in the Jesuit church of St. Stanilas at Nancy. Her remains and the heart of Duke Charles, which had been interred in the same chapel, were removed to the ducal mausoleum in 1772, when some fresh improvements were made in the Rotonde, by order of Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the last Duke of Lorraine and of the Empress Maria Theresa.[675] At the Revolution, in 1793, these tombs were destroyed and their contents rifled by the mob, and the ashes of the dead Princes were flung into a common grave. In 1818 they were replaced in their original tombs, the sarcophagi were restored, and the old inscriptions once more carved in the marble.
Charles III.'s second daughter, Elizabeth, married her first cousin, Maximilian, who succeeded his father in 1598, as Duke of Bavaria, and played a memorable part in the Thirty Years' War. Her next sister, Antoinette, became Duchess of Cleves, while Catherine, the youngest and most interesting of the whole family, took the veil after her father's death. This beautiful and accomplished Princess refused all the suitors who sought her hand, among them the scholar-Emperor, Rudolf II., who found in her a kindred spirit. A mystic by nature, Catherine assumed the grey Capucin habit while she lived at her father's Court, and, after he died, founded a Capucin convent in Nancy. The Pope appointed her Abbess of Remiremont, a Benedictine community of high-born ladies, which she endeavoured to reform. She was much attached to her aunt Dorothea, and after her death spent most of her time at the Court of France with her niece Margaret, the wife of Gaston, Duke of Orleans. Catherine took an active part in French politics in the stormy days of Louis XIII., and died in Paris in 1648, at the age of seventy-five.[676]
1736] THE LAST DUKE OF LORRAINE
The seventeenth century witnessed the gradual dismemberment of the duchy of Lorraine, and in Richelieu's days Nancy was again occupied by French invaders. At length, in 1736, the last Duke, Francis III., was compelled to surrender Lorraine in exchange for the grand-duchy of Tuscany, on his marriage with Maria Theresa, the only child of the Emperor Charles VI. From that time Lorraine ceased to exist as an independent State, and became a province of France, while the ex-King Stanislas of Poland fixed his residence at Nancy and transformed the ancient capital into a modern city. By this marriage the House of Lorraine became merged in the imperial line of Habsburg, and the blood of King René still flows in the veins of the Austrian Emperor and of the royal families of Savoy and Spain.
Christina would have rejoiced to know that this union—a love-match like her own—was followed shortly by the elevation of Maria Theresa's husband to the imperial throne, and that by this means the House of Habsburg was raised to a height of power and splendour which it had never attained since the days of Charles V. For although she married twice into princely houses, and was much attached both to Milan and Lorraine, Christina was before all else a Habsburg, and the glory and welfare of the imperial race remained throughout her life the first object of her thoughts. Like Mary of Hungary and Eleanor of France, she grew up in absolute obedience to the Emperor's will, and wherever she went in after-years his word was still her law. In the darkest hours of her life, when she lost son and State at one blow, it was her greatest sorrow to feel that she could no longer be of service to the Emperor and his house. After the abdication of Charles V., this love and loyalty were transferred to Philip II., and her one fear was lest her son should be drawn into the opposite camp, and become French in his sympathies. And to the end she was always quick to obey the call of blood and respond to any appeal from a member of the House of Austria.
This strong family affection gave an added bitterness to the neglect and injustice which she suffered at Philip's hands during the last thirty years of her existence. One reason for his persistently harsh usage was, there can be no doubt, that Christina represented the national feeling and aspirations after freedom, which Philip and his ministers, Alva and Granvelle, did all in their power to crush. Both in the Netherlands, where the popularity of the great Emperor's niece made her dangerous in their eyes, and in Lombardy, where she filled an important position as Lady of Tortona, she came into collision with the same all-reaching arm. To the last she strove valiantly to resist the tyranny of Spanish officials and to protect her subjects from the rapacity of foreign soldiers, and a century after her death the citizens of Tortona still cherished the memory of the noble lady who, as long as she lived, had preserved them from the yoke of Spain.
Christina's lot was cast in troubled times, when crime and bloodshed were rife, and religious convictions only served to heighten the violence of men's passions; but her name shines pure and unsullied on these dark pages of history. She was naturally hasty and impulsive, she made some mistakes and met with many failures, but she was always generous and high-minded, faithful and affectionate to her friends, and full of ardent charity for the poor and downtrodden. Above all, her unceasing labours in the cause of peace justly earned the gratitude of her contemporaries, and deserve to be remembered by posterity.
1590] CHRISTINA'S RARE CHARM
At the close of this long and eventful life we turn back once more to Holbein's portrait of the youthful Duchess. As we look at the grave eyes and innocent face, we ask ourselves what was the secret of this woman's power, of the strange fascination which she possessed for men and leaders of men. What made heroes like René of Orange, and daredevils like Albert of Brandenburg, count the world well lost for love of her? Why were brave captains and brilliant courtiers—Stampa, Vendôme, De Courrières, Polweiler, Adolf of Holstein—all of them her willing slaves from the moment that they saw her face and heard the sound of her voice? What drew thoughtful men like William of Orange and Emanuel Philibert into the circle of her intimate friends, and brought even the cold-hearted Philip under her spell? It was hardly her beauty, for she had many rivals, or her superior intellect and exalted birth. Rather was it the rare and indefinable quality that we call charm, the sweet womanliness of nature, the gentle sympathy and quick response of heart and eye, ready at any moment to listen and to help, to comfort and to cheer. This, if we mistake not, was the secret of Christina's wonderful influence, of the attraction which she possessed for men and women alike, an attraction which outlived the days of youth and endured to the last hour of her life. Ever loving, she was therefore ever beloved.