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00:00:58.900hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast
00:01:16.000my name is ann foster and this is christina of sweden part four so i didn't realize when i
00:01:23.260started doing this this was going to be a four-part episode but frankly the amount of stuff
00:01:28.460that this person did it just keeps going she's unrelenting we've had other people who i don't
00:01:33.980know i think part of it is that christina became king when she was a little girl and then she kept
00:01:41.020doing interesting stuff for the whole rest of her life like there's been other people you know
00:01:44.000fredigan for instance where we don't know what she was up to as a child she just enters the
00:01:47.980historical record when she wins the heart of the king that time but like christina because she was
00:01:52.940royal we know every detail about her from her childhood which is a wild and interesting as
00:01:57.540you know from part one the first one she was being queen actively that's part two part three we looked
00:02:04.120at what she got up to after she left sweden and unlike some other people even like catalina de
00:02:09.840arousal whose story has so many parallels to her honestly just from the sort of the queer stuff
00:02:14.940the pants stuff the love of velvet stuff just the the overall chaos of it like the similarities but0.69
00:02:20.660catalina we don't know a lot about like she grew up in the convent we don't know what she was like
00:02:24.420after catalina met the pope she kind of went back to south america maybe died maybe didn't like we
00:02:31.760don't know about christina it's like every month of her life we know exactly what she was doing
00:02:36.080from records, from the appalled diaries of people who saw her doing things. And I couldn't,
00:02:43.680I couldn't leave out any of it. It's such a wildly interesting, irritating story. And this is part
00:02:51.000four. This will be, I think, the final part. I think. We'll see how long it takes to get through
00:02:57.020this part. So as with the other episodes, I would give the advice to listen to parts one through
00:03:03.760three before you get to part four. But you know, that's just because that's how I've experienced it.
00:03:08.100Maybe if you want to just jump in with part four, welcome aboard. It's a wild ride. And here we go.
00:03:15.960So when last we left Christina, so she was being a freelance queen in Rome, but she decided because
00:03:22.480of debt reasons, various reasons, that just wasn't the life for her. And then she figured out, well,
00:03:28.060she didn't, I don't think she invented this plan, but she got wind of this plan that Cardinal
00:03:32.680Meseret in France wanted to try for the third time to take over Naples and he needed some sort0.99
00:03:38.920of freelance queen to take over. And that's where she came in with her signature enthusiasm. So1.00
00:03:44.300because of her BFF at Salino, she knew about codes. She knew about how to write secret,
00:03:49.260sexy letters, but something to this extent, you know, like usurping Naples, it's like she needed
00:03:56.520to have some face-to-face time with Meseret. Like it was just becoming too dangerous to do this all
00:04:01.580letters like even at soleno i don't think he knew that this plan was taking form so she was like
00:04:06.820okay i gotta go to paris to have some face time with mesaran to talk about this plan of ours
00:04:11.560um her plan to you know get on a horse and like do her alexander the great cosplay his plan did
00:04:17.640not do that exactly but she had like only just gotten to rome fairly recently-ish it would be
00:04:23.460suspicious if she suddenly just like left rome so she had to come up with an excuse why she was
00:04:29.320leaving. I mean, she did, but also she lives for the drama. She lives for the espionage. This is
00:04:35.580like, I don't relate to Christina in every way, but her love of just scheming, I really, I feel
00:04:42.820that too. So the plan was she made up was she said she had to return to Sweden to start out some
00:04:47.940financial stuff. And as she was broke and everybody knew she was broke, this was not suspicious at all.
00:04:53.800She's also pretty chaotic and random person. So honestly, if she was just like, I'm just going
00:04:58.120out of town for a bit, everyone would be like, good, bye. So then her alibi got even stronger
00:05:02.900because there was an outbreak of plague in Rome, which meant that everybody who could leave was
00:05:08.080leaving. So it made sense that she would leave too. And because of the plague, the Swiss and
00:05:12.300the Germans had closed their borders. So if you look at a map of Europe, it's not Rome to Sweden
00:05:18.840doesn't have to go through France. But if the Swiss and Germans had closed their borders,
00:05:23.720she kind of had to go that way. So she had to go through France to get to Sweden, which was not
00:05:28.000where she was going. She was going to France. It was a secret to a lot of people, but like the
00:05:31.980Pope knew what she was up to. And luckily for her, he financed the trip because she of course had
00:05:37.380zero money. He financed the trip because he's like good, you know, taking over Naples is like good
00:05:42.400for me in some way, I guess. Or maybe he was financing the trip because did the Pope know
00:05:47.800about it? Now I forget the exact details of this. The Pope knew she was going, maybe he just thought
00:05:53.160she was going to Sweden and he was financing that. You know what? The Pope just wanted her to leave
00:05:57.880and he was happy. Everybody was just delighted. She had been there for what, like a couple years
00:06:02.440and she had more than worn out her welcome because with her just sort of like Miley Cyrus
00:06:07.680bangers era, just this young woman who's so excited to get to do her own thing, it just
00:06:14.440becomes a bit off-putting. Not that Miley Cyrus is at all off-putting. I don't know why I keep
00:06:19.120relating this to Miley Cyrus, but like Miley Cyrus, Christina was from a very young age.
00:06:24.340she was being sort of controlled by mostly men who told her what to do and then eventually she
00:06:29.840was just like fuck this i'm gonna do my own thing and i think the thing is that miley cyrus had her0.51
00:06:33.840bangers era but she's not still in it like she moved on to other eras christina just like is0.90
00:06:40.520still in this really high key really excited to get to do her own thing be a spy era so one english
00:06:47.020spy in rome wrote quote they begin to be weary at rome of their new guest the queen of sweden
00:06:53.420and so she had been living in this place the palazzo farnese and one of her like aides there
00:06:58.560wrote we've been singing the songs of the children of israel after their escape from egypt
00:07:03.740i can hardly believe she's gone every moment i'm afraid of seeing her still in the place
00:07:09.560it was it was a good time for her to like step away from rome so she set off with an entourage
00:07:15.520she's got her entourage with her this time it was about 60 people they were mostly men there's just0.97
00:07:20.900two women who were actually sound like pretty awesome women. They were these two kind of like1.00
00:07:26.040thieves slash fences who would help her when she had to pawn off some of her valuables. So these
00:07:32.340two just kind of like rough women along with a whole bunch of Italian men, including her close0.87
00:07:37.620friend Mondaleski, who was her master of the horse. And the description of there's like four ships,
00:07:42.980I think. And she was on one of the ships and her apartment on board the ship. She'd given
00:07:48.360specifications which wanted it to be like and reading about it just makes me think exactly of
00:07:53.500steed bonnet's quarters on the ship on our flag means death so her room on like a ship was
00:08:00.160sumptuously furnished in red damask with a vast throne-like armchair covered in velvet so she's
00:08:06.640just living in this extravagant glamorous room while on like literally the same ship like below
00:08:11.280decks the ship was being rowed by enslaved prisoners of war and criminals so as per ever
00:08:16.640with her like when she was putting together her coronation as the people of sweden were starving
00:08:21.280because there was no bread like there's this the contrast of her kind of glamorous like over-the-top
00:08:28.480luxury lifestyle and what was happening with other people the ship sort of sailed like really close0.99
00:08:34.660to the coast the whole way because they didn't want to run into the barbary coarse hairs who we0.98
00:08:40.980learned about the Sayyid al-Hura episode because this is kind of a place where they were so they
00:08:47.620but staying close to the coast meant there wasn't pirates although Christina wrote in her unpublished
00:08:51.520memoirs that she kind of had fantasies she like at one point thought she saw some pirates
00:08:55.100she fantasized that maybe she'd be taken off to join the Turkish harem so the ship was sailing
00:09:00.560along pretty slowly because it was going along the coast not like straight there and when they
00:09:04.740got to Marseille in France which was their destination that's where they're going to
00:09:08.320disembark and then continue on on horses and carriages and stuff the people of messiah
00:09:12.560protested because they knew that there was plague in rome slash italy so the people kind of had like
00:09:18.900a riot type moment just wanting the they didn't want the ship to land and understandable valid
00:09:25.420intelligent good for them so there was sort of a compromise made where maybe you know like the
00:09:32.440ship like honor flag means death like you get on the little ship like you drop your anchor further
00:09:36.960out and then the little ships come in with the people on but christina was like that is not a
00:09:40.360grand enough arrival for me i refuse and so eventually they were able to pull up the ship
00:09:45.060to the quay i don't know a little about ship parking but that anyway it pleased her and so
00:09:51.060they arrived and from mazarin's money like he had funded so that every place where they stopped
00:09:56.880on their way christina would be celebrated because she's just like you know new catholic monarch it's
00:10:02.060really exciting so there was three days of public festivities which to their credit as well the
00:10:06.700people of Marseille changed their mind. And they're like, you know what, we're glad to have
00:10:09.800her here. She's funding three days of parties. Here we go. And so then they set off by land
00:10:14.280to Paris. For the last part of the journey, she was accompanied by the Duke de Guise,
00:10:20.340who pops up in the story a lot. I'm not going to mention him every time he does. But he was just
00:10:24.440kind of like a notable person in France in this era. What is interesting about him in this context
00:10:29.740is that he was actually the guy who, last time we talked about how Mazarin had tried to take over
00:10:35.540Naples before and the Duke de Guise had been the person who he placed as king briefly so Christina
00:10:39.860was excited to meet this guy who was not only just a handsome famous womanizer and also French
00:10:45.300but he was also like sort of the sort of war hero that she was a big stand for and he wrote back to
00:10:51.720the king what he thought of her which includes some interesting details about what she looks like
00:10:57.440so these are just excerpts from the longer thing he wrote so he wrote her face is nicely shaped but
00:11:03.780framed by the most extraordinary coiffure. She wears a man's wig, very heavy and piled high in
00:11:10.040the front, hanging thickly at the sides and fair at the ends. The top of her head is a mass of hair,
00:11:15.800at the back it looks vaguely like a woman's coiffure. Sometimes she wears a hat. She always
00:11:20.820wears a lot of powder and face cream and men's shoes, and she sounds and moves like a man as0.81
00:11:25.320well. I do not think that I've forgotten anything, except sometimes she wears a sword and a buffalo
00:11:30.280hide collar and her wig is black everyone who meets her from here on out always make mention
00:11:35.900of the wig which it just sounds like she was not taking care of she's not putting it in any sort of
00:11:40.820container she was not maintaining the wig so the wig just gets wilder and wilder looking but bear
00:11:46.260in mind that she also shaved her head right so she shaved her head and then just like plop this
00:11:50.860like bad wig on on top and that was kind of a look so she spent so much time with this guy the
00:11:57.080duke de guise of course everybody were like are they lovers which like anytime she spent any time
00:12:02.880with anybody of any gender it's like oh are they lovers like everyone just really wanted her to
00:12:07.480have a lover did she i don't know with him almost definitely no partially because around the same
00:12:13.580time she's hanging out with him she met the marquise elizabeth de castellan who is aka la
00:12:19.540belle provencal so she was this beautiful 20 year old woman and christina fell in love with her
00:12:25.300in the sense that one can fall in love with someone you've just met and who you don't know
00:12:29.620so she was just very attracted to her elizabeth was one of the most beautiful women in the kingdom
00:12:35.100she was now 20 she had been married at age 13 but then her husband died in a shipwreck so she was
00:12:40.060this sexy young widow and in fact christina delayed the procession to paris to meet mesaran
00:12:44.680to talk about taking over naples because she was so infatuated with this beautiful woman
00:12:48.900christina wrote her a letter which again she barely knew her but this is a significant letter
00:12:55.120especially in terms of the like sexual identity so christina wrote ah if i were a man i would
00:13:01.900fall at your feet submissive and languishing with love i would spend days i would spend nights in
00:13:06.960contemplation of your divine attractions your beautiful eyes are the innocent authors of all
00:13:12.100my woes i will spend the rest of my life in a state of bittersweet enchantment while i await
00:13:17.560some happy reversal that will change my sex in this sweet hope i count the days of my life
00:13:23.080so in the biography by Veronica Buckley she's like women wrote letters you know people wrote
00:13:29.360letters like this all the time like it doesn't necessarily mean anything people just wrote
00:13:32.180flowery things all the time which I question because it's similar-ish to the letters that
00:13:37.800she wrote to Eva Sparre her maybe lesbian lover from before but to say like I wish that I were a
00:13:44.540man I await some happy reversal that will change my sex is a pretty extreme thing to say she and0.74
00:13:50.980the Marquis, this is again, not a cute lesbian love story. So like they didn't, I think they1.00
00:13:56.660might've kept exchanging letters for a while, but eventually the Marquis did get married again
00:14:00.580within two years. And one day when her husband was out of town, her husband's two brothers
00:14:06.080tried to rape her. She defended herself, but they forced her to take poison, then killed her with a0.79
00:14:11.900pistol and a dagger. So I mentioned that not just to be a bummer, but also just a reminder of what
00:14:17.040life was like even for really wealthy privileged women at this time like the the shit that1.00
00:14:23.760christina was doing was so unusual so unusual in the face of just horrific conditions being0.94
00:14:30.240faced by like every other woman in all of europe eventually christina made it to paris and i
00:14:36.740imagine it being like that song from the animated version of anastasia where they're just like
00:14:41.300ooh la la like she just got to Paris like she's been a fan of French Parisian culture her whole
00:14:47.000life so she just shows up and it's just everything everything she'd always dreamed of she's in the
00:14:52.000city that she fantasized about and to her delight because of her with Mezarin she got like you know
00:14:59.160the huge royal greeting whatever you know like tens of thousands of soldiers all standing to
00:15:03.500greet her fireworks cannons etc she was even presented with a key to the city and in a very
00:15:09.220Christina-like touch. She had entered on a horse. I think it was borrowed probably from the Duke
00:15:13.780de Guise. It was like a really cool, like a great horse. And she was wearing like this red dress.
00:15:19.960The horse was wearing purple and gold. And she liked being on the horse so much that she actually
00:15:24.460refused to get off the horse, even though she was supposed to get off the horse and go on the stage
00:15:28.580to like accept the key of the city. So right away, it's just kind of like, oh, is this going to go
00:15:32.700well are the people of france gonna like vibe with this weirdo uh so far kind of while she was there
00:15:41.180she went to see various plays and things and she just made a spectacle of herself like the people
00:15:45.800of france were just so excited to see this interesting unusual person like when she went
00:15:50.140to see plays for instance the audience would often just watch her instead of the play because she her
00:15:55.840reactions are so extreme like when she thought something was funny she would laugh so loud she'd
00:15:59.800repeat lines even when she got bored and she fell asleep she did it very noticeably but what
00:16:05.340everybody wrote about is that she didn't sit in the typical way that people sat back then which0.97
00:16:10.820is now which is such the way the typical way people sit now which is like with your butt on
00:16:15.440a seat and your back on the back of the chair and like your legs in front of you rather at one place0.97
00:16:20.880she sat like with her legs sprawled over the side like the arm of the chair and she would like switch0.99
00:16:25.600sides. At another play, she sat in a chair and then propped her legs up on a second chair,
00:16:30.400adopting a posture that one Parisian wrote was so indecent that one glimpsed what even the least
00:16:35.100modest woman should keep hidden. So I think they're saying genitalia. I feel like she was0.90
00:16:39.820wearing pants. So not sure. She also, when she went to church services, she would just like
00:16:45.660chit chat with people all through it, which annoyed everybody, especially because she was
00:16:49.300supposed to be this great new Catholic convert. People are like, shouldn't she have the zeal of
00:16:54.040the newly converted but in fact she did not and the whole reason why she went there was to meet
00:17:00.740with mazarin but he was not in paris he was in campagne maybe that's how you say that so she
00:17:07.920eventually was like well can i meet with him in campagne and so eventually she did get permission
00:17:13.160to go there but when she went to meet him it would only be her alone nobody else could go into like
00:17:18.520the room with him this is because he was really really private apparently had really interesting
00:17:23.240art collections and stuff it's like sort of like an Anna Wintour moment it's just like you know if
00:17:27.820you're gonna see him it's on his terms and so she arrived you know carriages and horses and stuff
00:17:33.460clearly she had ridden there on her horse because she arrived all windswept her wig was all like
00:17:38.620half off like disheveled her skin was sunburnt and suntanned and just imagine you know this isn't
00:17:44.760quite a Marie Antoinette period but it's like the just before that period like the fancy elegant
00:17:49.380french women were like you know kept their skin so pale like the dresses were so fun like everything0.99
00:17:54.320was so you know like in a chevalier type way it's like it takes four hours to get ready and she just1.00
00:17:59.120blows in like sunburned with her wig half off wearing her like random like short skirt on top1.00
00:18:05.200of pants look and so she brought with her the acrobats the santanelli brothers who to the people0.91
00:18:13.320in campaign they did not look fancy or elegant and everyone was also surprised that she didn't0.98
00:18:18.700travel with women because usually queens traveled with ladies-in-waiting and that sort of thing and1.00
00:18:22.540the only women she had with her were these two random italian thieves who she just like brought
00:18:26.840around with her so she finally met mazarin thanks for that plan to like take over naples seemed to0.96
00:18:32.080be going okay but yeah just her personality was kind of making people question if they wanted to
00:18:38.700work with her as well after she stayed with mazarin for like a week it's time to leave france
00:18:43.580to go back to Rome and then maybe like on to Naples she was really excited about the plans
00:18:49.380couldn't wait to get started she wrote making promises she could never keep like such as
00:18:54.780saying that she would make Mesara the next pope um she started ordering more clothes for herself0.83
00:18:59.820she invented this whole new way that everybody should treat her as the queen or you know a
00:19:05.640series of like walking backwards and like a certain number of bows and stuff and nobody0.97
00:19:09.720could remember what the rules were and eventually like even she couldn't remember what the like
00:19:13.680special choreography was and when she got overwhelmed by it she just like pretend to be
00:19:17.340sick and go to her room in her mind she was already the queen of naples but mazarin was
00:19:22.880kind of ghosting her and she started to hear that france and spain might be coming to peace
00:19:28.060on their own and if that happened then there was no place for her for naples this this piece
00:19:33.780troubled her. She wrote, I love the storm and fear the calm. Because if she wasn't being Queen
00:19:40.100of Naples, like first of all, she had bought a lot of stuff to be Queen of Naples. But secondly,
00:19:44.620like what was going to be her hobby if she couldn't just daydream about being Queen of
00:19:49.080Naples all the time. So she couldn't make it back to Rome because she had spent all of her money
00:19:56.120already. So she wound up in this town called Pissarro, which is like, I'm sure a lovely place.
00:20:01.940but to her having been in Paris and Rome was like kind of small and kind of boring she stayed there
00:20:06.680for seven months just like writing letters to Mazarin and being like when are we taking over
00:20:10.460Naples like what's going on eventually she'd had enough and she decided to go back to Paris but
00:20:15.300when she got there she's staying in a house like just outside of Paris Mazarin didn't reply he's0.93
00:20:19.780like oh no I have the goat like the g-o-u-t the gout the disease he's like I can't see you because
00:20:26.860of the gout sorry magically by the time she leaves he's like oh I'm better no more gout0.81
00:20:32.000so she was humiliated obviously that she told everybody about this plan like that she thought
00:20:37.840this was happening and it just showed how she didn't have as much power as she liked to think0.96
00:20:43.300she had so she had a lot of pent-up rage and that is going to come out in this next little bit which
00:20:51.020is the next sort of major christina moment so it has to do with her longtime friend mondaleski
00:20:57.640what happened is everybody is suspicious and paranoid all the time about everybody because
00:21:03.840that's just that's just like the kind of world that this is so mondaleski was suspicious of
00:21:11.280francesco santanelli who was one of the acrobat brothers and so he wanted to kind of manipulate
00:21:18.540christina into turning against francesco santinelli but he was acting so shady that christina was kind
00:21:25.380of suspicious of like what is mondaleski up to disloyalty and so like all the stuff she learned
00:21:31.680from atselino about like reading each other's letters like i don't know the details but like
00:21:35.660letters were started to show up in different places but the seal had been broken like clearly
00:21:39.120like other people reading other people's letters it was all just very like shady things were going
00:21:43.540on mondaleski found out that christina had been reading his letters mondaleski's letters mondaleski
00:21:48.380forged some letters pretending like santanelli had written them and the letters were all like
00:21:53.080i don't know if they were like revealing christina's plans or just like saying rude
00:21:56.260things about christina because he knew christina was reading letters and so he wanted to to use
00:22:01.680that for his advantage but this could not have gone worse so christina saw these letters she
00:22:09.200knew that it was mondaleski's handwriting not santanelli's so she's like well why is mondaleski
00:22:13.140writing these mean things about me so she summoned him so she's staying at this place
00:22:17.780fontaine bleu which was a royal residence i think and part of that is a it's like a long hallway with
00:22:25.600lots of art in it it's called the galerie des surf which translate to i think the deer gallery
00:22:31.640and so she summoned him there to confront him about what she saw as him betraying her with
00:22:37.940these letters she knew that he had written these forged sentinelli letters and he's like why why0.99
00:22:43.300would you write these letters saying mean things about me and then he was like oh fuck like i'm0.96
00:22:47.000really in trouble about this and so for two hours he begged her to try to understand what he was0.99
00:22:52.720doing that he was loyal to her and all the while three other men stood watching their swords
00:22:58.520unsheathed like she was prepared to have him executed and he was just trying to talk his way
00:23:03.360out of it he's like actually i'm so loyal to you that's why i was doing this but eventually she
00:23:09.080announced he's a traitor and she ordered his execution and then she left leaving him with
00:23:15.640the three guys with swords mondaleski begged the guards like these guys to intervene on his behalf
00:23:22.360and they tried to um when they went to try to talk to christina she was like my mind is made up
00:23:26.340and please just like carry out the execution quickly and so from everyone who witnessed this
00:23:31.560what they all kind of commented on was how calm she was like she was just like this is happening
00:23:36.960she wasn't freaked out about it like even though Mondolesky had been her dear friend for a long
00:23:40.920time she was just like really cold-blooded about it which her if he was like doing treason against
00:23:48.920her and betraying her it's like why wouldn't she be cold-blooded about it so eventually
00:23:54.460so Mondolesky was just like waiting around in this like deer gallery and eventually he was stabbed
00:23:59.980by ironically lorenzo santinelli so he had been trying to turn the queen against francesco
00:24:06.580santinelli the one acrobat brother but then eventually he was stabbed by the three men
00:24:10.840one of them being francesco's brother lorenzo santinelli and it's one of these like if you're
00:24:17.300doing has anyone ever done the vulgar history bingo i don't know it's like if you scroll down
00:24:21.200on instagram it's there but one of the things is i think botched execution which is what this is
00:24:26.540because he was wearing like chain mail, which protected him when Zantinelli stabbed him
00:24:31.460in the stomach and neck. And then he was chased around an adjacent room before finally they
00:24:36.860succeeded in dealing him a fatal wound to his throat. So he was executed in the deer gallery.
00:24:42.880This was an incredibly big deal. On legal grounds, Christina was within her rights to do this
00:24:48.900because as queen, even a queen without a country, she was considered the absolute ruler to all
00:24:54.020members of her household and Mondolesky was a member of her household so she was allowed to
00:24:59.140execute him but that's like technically in practice everyone was just like what just happened
00:25:06.100for instance in Rome Mondolesky was an Italian nobleman who was murdered by a Swedish woman
00:25:12.100and then Santinelli was one of the executioners so people in Rome were kind of just like this is
00:25:18.440not cool and also the letters proving his guilt like the forged letters no one's ever seen them
00:25:25.320since then christina likely had them burned the pope himself denounced christina as quote
00:25:30.460a barbarian brought up barbarously and living barbarously and declared he would take legal
00:25:37.260action against the killers because mondaleski had been his subject like technically is a person who0.77
00:25:43.360lived in rome and he also banned christina from returning to rome so this was like a whole
00:25:50.480situation christina wrote to mesara explaining like hey guess what this just happened whatever
00:25:55.780and for once he actually answered her letter and he was like horrified and he advised her like here's
00:26:02.460what you should do like say it wasn't you weren't involved say like it was just scuffled between
00:26:06.640courtiers like just get yourself not involved in this whole thing and she's like i'm sorry did you
00:26:10.900say I should write a multi-page thing explaining exactly what happened and how I did it because
00:26:16.780that is what she did she was just like really owning what she had done which I don't know
00:26:22.620whatever like if she had tried to cover it up that would have been different but the fact that
00:26:25.900she was just like yeah I did it you know I kind of respect that I guess I don't know I don't respect
00:26:33.460that she did it but I respect that she wasn't trying to weasel her way out of its ability for
00:26:38.700it but her doing that really burned the final bridge between her and mazarin slash france like
00:26:45.140for a while she was still staying in fontainebleau but she was not allowed to enter paris for months
00:26:49.380and then finally she was permitted to go back and it was carnival season but kind of like how mazarin
00:26:54.980was like i have gout sorry i can't talk to you bye all of her other parisian friends were all
00:27:00.740like mysteriously busy didn't have time to see her so though she was being spurned by like all0.98
00:27:06.320the important people in society she was just like it's carnival fuck it let's just whatever1.00
00:27:11.160she's whatever at this age like 29 years old so she went to all the like public balls she went to0.98
00:27:16.840all the like entertainments she would arrive masked and costumed now the biography said each0.99
00:27:23.300time more fantastically and i'll leave that to all of our imagination know what we know about her1.00
00:27:28.400her love of hats wigs velvet what that would have looked like at one point she's wearing some sort0.99
00:27:35.060of amazon inspired headdress like a lot of people sort of considered her or described her as an
00:27:40.060amazon because that was kind of the only context they had for like a woman who i don't know carries
00:27:46.360a sword sometimes anyway so as much as the like important people were avoiding her the like
00:27:52.400normal people the non-noble non-royal people enjoyed seeing her what her outfit's going to be
00:27:57.200and also she's just like a person about town it's kind of like right i guess now it's still
00:28:02.560of happening but like right after julia fox ended her extremely brief relationship with kanye west
00:28:09.680aka yay where people just started seeing her around town it's like oh my god i saw julia fox0.99
00:28:13.920she's wearing like you know like a belt as a shirt she had five of her eyebrows like people0.98
00:28:18.540were just really excited because she was just like a weird unusual person and she would just like1.00
00:28:22.540be on the streets randomly like she would just drink carnival she was apparently charging around1.00
00:28:27.800the city in her various excellent outfits and her behavior showed quote very little wisdom a lot of
00:28:33.860bad behavior and a great desire for pleasure so i don't know could this be partially her feeling
00:28:40.380guilt for the assassination or the execution of mondalewski maybe like was she sort of distracting
00:28:47.140herself with just partying maybe i will remind you though that she doesn't drink alcohol she
00:28:52.400mostly just drank juice she liked orange juice so she's just like partying it up just like
00:28:58.900enjoying carnival whatever good for her again she's like a young woman just like still feeling
00:29:04.600freedom but eventually she had no choice to depart france france more or less kicked her out
00:29:10.360so the king was still a little boy louis the 14th so his mom anne of austria was kind of in charge
00:29:17.600and eventually she was just like you leave and like hired a carriage and more or less forced
00:29:23.940christina into it and by now she was allowed back in rome and so that's where she went so she this
00:29:30.280was her like technically third arrival in rome but this time it was definitely no exciting triumph
00:29:36.740there was no you know big greeting for her because with the execution of mondeleski she just her
00:29:42.780popularity was gone she was the same as in france no one wanted to have anything to do with her the
00:29:47.520pope remained in his summer residence and like wanted no further visits from her her roman
00:29:53.060friends were also being like new phone who's this like sorry i'm busy like no one wanted to talk to
00:29:58.780her and so when she first arrived she's staying at a palazzo that belonged to mazarin um he had
00:30:05.460offered her ability to stay there as a way to like convince her to like leave france so she's
00:30:09.760staying in this palazzo which was ironically right across the street from the pope's house
00:30:13.980which the Pope was just like maybe that's why he's staying in the summer house he just didn't
00:30:18.120want to run into her but then Azzolino remember her like longtime friend lover he's still
00:30:26.040influential so he helped her get a new house she moved into a place called the Palazzo Riario
00:30:30.840which became her residence for like the rest of her life he also helped her find new servants
00:30:36.820who are mostly like people who he knew or his family members or whatever they sort of like
00:30:41.100consciously uncoupled from lorenzo santinelli aka the murderer of mondaleski and yeah so she moved
00:30:48.660in she had all of her art you know that a lot of it had been in storage and stuff so she moved in
00:30:52.660all of her her paintings she had gotten during her looting era all of her erotic artwork and i
00:30:58.400like this detail that her art collection included like all these classics and things statues and
00:31:03.640stuff too but also portraits of people who are important to her personally um there was a portrait
00:31:09.520of Ebba Spare her best friend slash lover there's a portrait of Descartes which is like okay portrait
00:31:16.920of Dr. Bordelais apparently just from what we know about her living in this house like she had
00:31:22.560bathtubs and she still was like very seriously taking all of his advice still taking regular
00:31:27.960baths eating regular meals like just true I mean one might say taking his advice too literally like
00:31:34.340she was only doing things that spark joy sometimes we all have to do things that don't spark joy
00:31:38.860anyway then april 1660 kg uh died in battle he was wounded in battle but it was kind of like
00:31:50.260he got pneumonia and then the doctors of sweden who again not dr bordele other doctors the doctors
00:31:58.240were like here we'll give you some sneezing powder like they thought it was something else
00:32:03.060they literally gave him sneezing powder um guess what he died so he was just in his 30s kg and so
00:32:09.880his heir was his son also called carl kg stands for carl gustav if you've forgotten because i
00:32:16.400haven't said his real name in three episodes so his son carl became the new king but he was only
00:32:20.480five years old and his regent was another old friend magnus christina's crush from way back
00:32:27.560in the day so magnus was becoming like really important as well but christine was like oh
00:32:33.280opportunity for me to maybe be a queen again so she went to sweden just to kind of like
00:32:39.020suss out the situation so she pointed out that when she abdicated she had left the throne to kg
00:32:44.840and his descendant so if like kg jr if carl jr died then like she was more than happy to
00:32:53.560you know take over and be queen again but the what is it the rickstag the like men council was just1.00
00:33:00.960like that's a hard no from us because she's a catholic she had fucked them over no they were0.97
00:33:07.300just like they sent her some paperwork being like christina will never be queen of anything in0.87
00:33:12.940sweden ever again that was the deal please sign this and she like had to sign it so this also
00:33:18.280didn't work she couldn't become queen of naples she was not going to be the new heir to the throne
00:33:22.380of sweden and so she left stockholm and went to a place called nor coping which was again
00:33:30.080so this is like a winter era and i really after reading all this learning about cecilia sweden
00:33:37.700like i would love to go to sweden sweden seems like a lovely place not in winter if you don't
00:33:43.360like extreme cold temperatures and christina did not she'd been in you know paris and she'd been
00:33:50.180in like rome and she's just like goddamn another swedish winter maybe the ghost of descartes came
00:33:54.960to haunt her a little bit so she just kind of got her fantasies in order for once in her life
00:34:00.980at selena really stepped in here as really just kind of i don't i don't know a famous
00:34:06.420financial person but he just like stepped in and was good with money and from now on she's kind of
00:34:12.840like her debts are kind of better paid off because there's a whole thing happening where
00:34:16.100sweden had given her the money that came from these various parcels of land and then
00:34:22.180azzolino sent a guy to sort of like investigate and turns out that these places had been not
00:34:27.020giving her as much money as they were supposed to like she was supposed to be getting twice as
00:34:29.840much money as she was so suddenly she like had money again diego texierra her friend he was
00:34:36.100still there kind of helping out so now with her money in order she arrived in rome for the fourth
00:34:41.620time and the next couple years were like for once in this saga this is where I don't think it's
00:34:46.740going to be a five-part episode like there's a couple years where like kind of nothing happened
00:34:50.800which is good for me in terms of like how many episodes is this going to be and also good for
00:34:55.540her in terms of just like just be you and like live so she was staying in this house the palazzo
00:35:04.040that Azzolino had helped her get it had a really big garden she really enjoyed you know not doing
00:35:08.760herself, hiring people to do it. She had some like 300 orange trees. So she could like always
00:35:13.200have limitless orange juice because she did not drink alcohol. She did not. She tried drinking0.55
00:35:18.100wine for a bit when she first came to Rome, but it was not for her. So she preferred juice. Most
00:35:22.400of her servants were still men. There were some jobs that just like women generally did. Like1.00
00:35:28.400you couldn't really hire men to do some of the stuff. And she was okay with that as long as they
00:35:32.640didn't get married or especially have children. If she saw a pregnant woman, like if one of her1.00
00:35:38.340servants was visibly pregnant or if one of her male servants pregnant wife came by she like0.73
00:35:42.160freaked out she just like could not handle the idea of or just the concept she hated being around0.98
00:35:47.320married and or pregnant women i don't know she started entertaining as as we've learned she had0.88
00:35:53.860a real weakness for grifters in the form of like sexy men so she invited lots of people into her0.90
00:36:00.180life who were just kind of like shitty people there's one guy i forget his name but he was0.98
00:36:03.860like a convicted rapist and she was just like you're not so bad and then he like i don't know0.94
00:36:10.560one way or another he um fathered the child of one of her servants and christina knows that0.73
00:36:15.440that servant was pregnant then she paid to have an abortion done but then it went badly and then0.96
00:36:20.660the servant died and christina was like oh that's too bad and she kept the like rapist guy around
00:36:25.260so you know every time there's something quasi wholesome about christina like the orange juice0.97
00:36:32.680than something you're just reminded of like oh no she's a horrible person the rapist i would say0.91
00:36:38.400is maybe a more horrible person but christina just like her hatred of women is a real driving0.99
00:36:45.100force through her whole life and then for some like various financial reasons she had to return
00:36:49.320to sweden again oh she hated being in sweden she spent some time in hamburg and then the pope died
00:36:57.860this is the second pope that's been in this story it was pope alexander the seventh who had kind of
00:37:04.080not been on her side as well and then you know they did the thing the conclave the white smoke
00:37:08.180the new pope who was chosen was clement the ninth who fun fact had been a regular guest at her palace
00:37:14.440so like her bro like her friend maybe he was in the book club was the new pope so she's happy
00:37:20.680she thinks this means good things for her so she threw a party at her lodgings in hamburg
00:37:24.880which is where she was when she learned this news hamburg like not a lutheran place filled
00:37:30.080with german people so she had illuminations which i think means fireworks um she did her trademark
00:37:35.800wine fountain again which i feel like if it's her you think it would be a jews fountain anyway this
00:37:41.520party enraged the lutheran people of hamburg which were like almost everybody in hamburg
00:37:45.600and the party ended in a shooting an attempt to kidnap her and she had to escape in disguise
00:37:51.900through a back door which was probably scary but also i think she kind of enjoyed that she loves a
00:37:59.040disguise moment and she never stopped looking to be like is there a country that needs a queen
00:38:04.300because like i'm your girl so that was 1667 one year later 1668 the king or emperor or whatever
00:38:13.940of the polish lithuanian throne abdicated and returned to france so the monarchy in poland
00:38:19.700was elective christina being a descendant of the house of vasa put herself forward as a candidate
00:38:25.640for this election she's like i could be your king i have experience she recommended herself because
00:38:32.320she was catholic because she was an old maid and she intended to remain one so she said you know
00:38:38.700i can just be a queen for a while and then figure stuff out and then we can decide the next king like0.93
00:38:42.520it won't be my child but and she had the support of her bro the pope but her application for the
00:38:48.940job was not accepted although she wasn't too sad about it because being in rome and then she could
00:38:54.080still stay close to her romantic friend at solino there's a couple bits in the story i didn't
00:38:59.900mention them as we were going but a couple times when she left rome she would like
00:39:03.360look at a miniature painting of him and like cry like she really missed him like she really
00:39:08.420depended on at solino he was just like it's her person in a gray's anatomy way so she was in
00:39:17.020Hamburg when this happened returned to Rome so again this is her fifth time re-entering Rome so
00:39:24.120this is November 22nd 1668 and again this is just like her good times era so the Pope would often
00:39:31.400visit her they had a shared interest in plays and I guess orange juice she relaunched her book club
00:39:38.580the academy and her her home had a great hall with a platform for singers and actors and then the Pope
00:39:46.460um he eventually suffered a stroke and she was among the few he wanted to see at his deathbed
00:39:50.840like they were they were bros christina established rome's first public theater which was in what was0.72
00:39:57.760a former jail i don't know what the jail would look like anyway she turned a jail into a public
00:40:02.480theater it was rome's first public theater because remember there's the whole thing when she first
00:40:06.700moved there she had to go to hang out in convents to hear people singing and stuff like all the
00:40:10.100plays were being done at people's homes like she had a great hall in her home but this is a theater
00:40:13.700that just anyone could go to so i mean that's cool of her it's called the tour di nona the next pope
00:40:20.860clement x although came in and he worried about the influence of theater on public morals so
00:40:27.300he i don't i guess he was the pope for not a really long time i played an ad on previous episode
00:40:34.180for a podcast that goes pope by pope through all the popes and frankly there's been so many popes
00:40:40.020in this christina saga i think if we want to learn more about popes check out the pontifacts
00:40:46.360podcast so this is another notable thing about christina she lived in rome on and off but through
00:40:52.760the reign of like four different popes some of whom were her friends some of whom were not so
00:40:57.700clement the 10th became the new pope then i guess he died and then the next pope was innocent the
00:41:05.10011th and things got even worse just in terms of people who like theater and freedom so within a
00:41:11.640few years he made christina's jail turned theater into a storeroom for grain it sucks although he
00:41:19.680had been one of her bros he had been a frequent guest in her royal box of that theater with the
00:41:23.980other cardinals so he like attended the theater then turned against her he brought back those0.97