“I am not a woman,” replied Christina; “I am a queen, and I have the right to punish a traitor.” She gave the signal. There was a fearful struggle, the flash of Sentinelli’s sword, an agonised cry, a crimson stream upon the floor—and then the silence of death.
It had been with extreme reluctance that Ninon had accompanied the queen to Fontainebleau; but for all Christina’s enigmatical and elaborate preparations before starting, any conception of her murderous intentions did not occur to Ninon. She had grown accustomed to the royal lady’s freaks and eccentricities. On this occasion, Christina had sent for a confessor, and having attired herself from head to foot in black, she knelt before him when he arrived, and first desiring Ninon not to leave the apartment, but to seat herself in a distant corner of it, she muttered out to the perplexed-looking Bishop of Amiens—whom she had sent for, he staying at that time at the Tuileries, spending a kind of brief retreat—what she had to say.
It occupied some five minutes, and as she proceeded, an expression of deep discomfiture and perplexity overspread the bishop’s face. He gave her a hurried absolution, and departed, while Christina went to the chapel of the Feuillants and communicated. All these pious preparations had disarmed Ninon of any extreme of uncomfortable suspicion she might have entertained. Christina could not possibly be nursing any evil intentions—while Ninon was a woman, and curiosity had impelled her to Fontainebleau, to see what was the end of the affair, and find out the cause of such floods of tears.
In the coach with them were Monaldeschi and Sentinelli. To the first she did not address a single word throughout the journey. It was nearing five o’clock, and night was shadowing in, when they arrived; and when they had had supper, Christina commanded Monaldeschi to go to the Galérie des Cerfs, where she would presently come to him. Then she bade Sentinelli follow the count, and motioning Ninon to accompany her, she proceeded between two rows of Swiss Guards, armed with halberds tied about with black crape, to the Galérie. Now thoroughly fearful, Ninon had followed with trembling limbs. “In Heaven’s name,” she faltered, “what does this mean, Madame?—something terrible is about to happen.” With an evil smile Christina threw open the double doors, disclosing Monaldeschi, with his hands fast bound, kneeling at the feet of Lebel, whose features were ghastly with consternation at the task imposed on him, of hearing the doomed man’s confession.
At sight of Christina, Monaldeschi turned, and his agonised cry for pardon rang through the Galérie; but there was no mercy in that hideously hate-distorted face; and so, in cold blood, the murder was perpetrated, and out into the darkness Ninon rushed, calling for a carriage to bear her from the terrible place, heedless of the queen’s gibes and endeavours to persuade her at least to remain till morning. It was nothing—what she had done, she said; “only a traitor had received his deserts, and the world was well rid of him.”
But the coach drew up, and Ninon fled into its shelter, never stopping till she reached home. There she took to her bed in a high state of fever, having ever before her the terrible scene of blood at Fontainebleau, and for three weeks she remained prostrated by the memory of it. She never saw Christina again, neither did Paris. Though the Court took no proceedings against her—insult to hospitality as her act was, all other considerations apart—she was avoided, and regarded with loathing, and she planned for herself a visit to England. But Cromwell had already supped full of murder. The image of it was sufficiently haunting, and the endeavours of his conscience to make peace with Heaven before he died were not to be disturbed by the presence of such a woman. He turned his face from her instead, and Christina betook herself to Rome, where she fell deep in debt, and quarrelled fiercely with the pope.
Overweening ambition was the bane of this undoubtedly clever woman. In the murder at Fontainebleau, it is thought that vanity and the love of power tempted her to display what she was pleased to regard as a full length of it. Exactly the nature of Monaldeschi’s offence remains unexplained. Christina said he had grossly betrayed her, and some assert that it was politically he had done so; but it seems more probable that he was a traitor in love. She defended herself by saying that she had reserved every right of life and death over all who were in her service. The atrocious deed caused a sensation in Paris; especially among those of whom the ex-queen had been a guest, and Anne of Austria sent for Ninon to relate all the details of her fearful experience at Fontainebleau.
The chief topic of conversation and speculation now was the marriage of the young king. It was well known that Mazarin hoped to crown his successful ambitions, by marrying his niece, Marie Mancini, to Louis, and that Anne of Austria was as strongly opposed to any such alliance was equally well-known. It was her wish and her will that Louis should wed the Infanta Maria Théresa. Any thwarting of this project, the queen vowed, should bring about the setting aside of Louis, and placing her second son on the throne of France in his stead—“La reine le veut.” Mazarin had to bite the dust. The preliminaries for the Spanish marriage were set on foot. The French and Spanish emissaries met on the Isle of Pheasants. Poor Marie Mancini, who had a sincere affection for her young royal admirer, was sent out of the way for a month into the convent of the Daughters of Calvary, which was hard by Ninon’s house. Louis whispered in her ear at parting, that if the king was separated from her, the man would never cease to think of her. Then he whistled to his dogs, and with his courtly train went hunting in the woods of Chambord. So ended the love-story of Mazarin’s niece, Marie Mancini. So much “for the snows of yester year”; but there had been warm affection between Ninon and the young girl, and they parted with many tears.