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Title: The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume
30: Old Age and Death

Author: Giacomo Casanova

Translator: Arthur Machen

Release date: December 12, 2004 [eBook #2980]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2980

Credits: Produced by David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS
OF JACQUES CASANOVA DE SEINGALT, 1725-1798. VOLUME 30:
OLD AGE AND DEATH ***

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

SPANISH PASSIONS, Volume 6e—OLD AGE AND DEATH

THE MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA DE SEINGALT THE RARE UNABRIDGED
LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TO WHICH HAS
BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.

OLD AGE AND DEATH OF CASANOVA

APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENT

Whether the author died before the work was complete, whether the
concluding volumes were destroyed by himself or his literary executors, or
whether the MS. fell into bad hands, seems a matter of uncertainty, and the
materials available towards a continuation of the Memoirs are extremely
fragmentary. We know, however, that Casanova at last succeeded in
obtaining his pardon from the authorities of the Republic, and he returned to
Venice, where he exercised the honourable office of secret agent of the
State Inquisitors—in plain language, he became a spy. It seems that the
Knight of the Golden Spur made a rather indifferent "agent;" not surely, as a
French writer suggests, because the dirty work was too dirty for his fingers,
but probably because he was getting old and stupid and out-of-date, and
failed to keep in touch with new forms of turpitude. He left Venice again
and paid a visit to Vienna, saw beloved Paris once more, and there met
Count Wallenstein, or Waldstein. The conversation turned on magic and the
occult sciences, in, which Casanova was an adept, as the reader of the
Memoirs will remember, and the count took a fancy to the charlatan. In
short Casanova became librarian at the count's Castle of Dux, near Teplitz,
and there he spent the fourteen remaining years of his life.

As the Prince de Ligne (from whose Memoirs we learn these particulars)
remarks, Casanova's life had been a stormy and adventurous one, and it
might have been expected that he would have found his patron's library a

pleasant refuge after so many toils and travels. But the man carried rough
weather and storm in his own heart, and found daily opportunities of
mortification and resentment. The coffee was ill made, the maccaroni not
cooked in the true Italian style, the dogs had bayed during the night, he had
been made to dine at a small table, the parish priest had tried to convert
him, the soup had been served too hot on purpose to annoy him, he had not
been introduced to a distinguished guest, the count had lent a book without
telling him, a groom had not taken off his hat; such were his complaints.
The fact is Casanova felt his dependent position and his utter poverty, and
was all the more determined to stand to his dignity as a man who had talked
with all the crowned heads of Europe, and had fought a duel with the Polish
general. And he had another reason for finding life bitter—he had lived
beyond his time. Louis XV. was dead, and Louis XVI. had been guillotined;
the Revolution had come; and Casanova, his dress, and his manners,
appeared as odd and antique as some "blood of the Regency" would appear
to us of these days. Sixty years before, Marcel, the famous dancing-master,
had taught young Casanova how to enter a room with a lowly and
ceremonious bow; and still, though the eighteenth century is drawing to a
close, old Casanova enters the rooms of Dux with the same stately bow, but
now everyone laughs. Old Casanova treads the grave measures of the
minuet; they applauded his dancing once, but now everyone laughs. Young
Casanova was always dressed in the height of the fashion; but the age of
powder, wigs, velvets, and silks has departed, and old Casanova's attempts
at elegance ("Strass" diamonds have replaced the genuine stones with him)
are likewise greeted with laughter. No wonder the old adventurer denounces
the whole house of Jacobins and canaille; the world, he feels, is
permanently out of joint for him; everything is cross, and everyone is in a
conspiracy to drive the iron into his soul.

At last these persecutions, real or imaginary, drive him away from Dux;
he considers his genius bids him go, and, as before, he obeys. Casanova has

but little pleasure or profit out of this his last journey; he has to dance
attendance in ante-chambers; no one will give him any office, whether as
tutor, librarian, or chamberlain. In one quarter only is he well received—
namely, by the famous Duke of Weimar; but in a few days he becomes
madly jealous of the duke's more famous proteges, Goethe and Wieland,
and goes off declaiming against them and German literature generally—
with which literature he was wholly unacquainted. From Weimar to Berlin;
where there are Jews to whom he has introductions. Casanova thinks them
ignorant, superstitious, and knavish; but they lend him money, and he gives
bills on Count Wallenstein, which are paid. In six weeks the wanderer
returns to Dux, and is welcomed with open arms; his journeys are over at
last.

But not his troubles. A week after his return there are strawberries at
dessert; everyone is served before himself, and when the plate comes round
to him it is empty. Worse still: his portrait is missing from his room, and is
discovered 'salement placarde a la porte des lieux d'aisance'!

Five more years of life remained to him. They were passed in such petty
mortifications as we have narrated, in grieving over his 'afreuse vieillesse',
and in laments over the conquest of his native land Venice, once so splendid
and powerful. His appetite began to fail, and with it failed his last source of
pleasure, so death came to him somewhat as a release. He received the
sacraments with devotion, exclaimed,—

"Grand Dieu, et vous tous temoins de ma mort, j'ai vecu en philosophe, et
je meurs en Chretien," and so died.

It was a quiet ending to a wonderfully brilliant and entirely useless
career. It has been suggested that if the age in which Casanova lived had
been less corrupt, he himself might have used his all but universal talents to
some advantage, but to our mind Casanova would always have remained

Casanova. He came of a family of adventurers, and the reader of his
Memoirs will remark how he continually ruined his prospects by his
ineradicable love for disreputable company. His "Bohemianism" was in his
blood, and in his old age he regrets—not his past follies, but his inability to
commit folly any longer. Now and again we are inclined to pronounce
Casanova to be an amiable man; and if to his generosity and good nature he
had added some elementary knowledge of the distinction between right and
wrong, he might certainly have laid some claim to the character. The Prince
de Ligne draws the following portrait of him under the name of Aventuros:

"He would be a handsome man if he were not ugly; he is tall and strongly
built, but his dark complexion and his glittering eyes give him a fierce
expression. He is easier to annoy than amuse; he laughs little but makes
others laugh by the peculiar turn he gives to his conversation. He knows
everything except those matters on the knowledge of which he chiefly
prides himself, namely, dancing, the French language, good taste, and
knowledge of the world. Everything about him is comic, except his
comedies; and all his writings are philosophical, saving those which treat of
philosophy. He is a perfect well of knowledge, but he quotes Homer and
Horace ad nauseam."

SUPPLEMENT TO

THE MEMOIRS OF
JACQUES CASANOVA
DE SEINGALT
Containing an Outline of Casanova's career from the
year 1774, when his own Memoirs abruptly
end, until his death in 1798

PART THE FIRST

VENICE 1774-1782 CASANOVA'S RETURN TO VENICE

Thus Casanova ended his Memoirs, concluding his narrative with his
sojourn at Trieste, in January 1774, where he had remained, except for a
few excursions, since the 15th November 1772. He was forty-nine years of
age. Since his unfortunate experiences in England, the loss of his fortune
and the failure of his efforts to obtain congenial and remunerative
employment in Germany or Russia, he had come to concentrate his efforts
on a return to his native city.

Of his faithful friends, the nobles Bragadin, Barbaro and Dandolo, the
first had died in 1767, having gone into debt "that I might have enough,"
sending Casanova, from his death-bed, a last gift of a thousand crowns.
Barbaro who had died also, in 1771, left Casanova a life-income of six
sequins a month. The survivor, Dandolo, was poor, but until his death, he
also gave Casanova a monthly provision of six sequins. However, Casanova
was not without influential friends who might not only obtain a pardon
from the State Inquisitors but also assist him to employment; and, in fact, it
was through such influence as that wielded by the Avogador Zaguri and the
Procurator Morosini, that Casanova received his pardon, and later, a
position as "Confidant," or Secret Agent, to the Inquisitors at Venice.

Casanova re-entered Venice the 14th September 1774 and, presenting
himself, on the 18th, to Marc-Antoine Businello, Secretary of the Tribunal
of the Inquisitors of State, was advised that mercy had been accorded him
by reason of his refutation of the History of the Venetian Government by
Amelot de la Houssaie which he had written during his forty-two day
imprisonment at Barcelona in 1768. The three Inquisitors, Francesco
Grimani, Francesco Sagredo and Paolo Bembo, invited him to dinner to
hear his story of his escape from The Leads.

In 1772, Bandiera, the Republic's resident at Ancona, drew this portrait of
Casanova:

"One sees everywhere this unhappy rebel against the justice of the
August Council, presenting himself boldly, his head carried high, and well
equipped. He is received in many houses and announces his intention of
going to Trieste and, from there, of returning to Germany. He is a man of
forty years or more," [in reality, forty-seven] "of high stature and excellent
appearance, vigorous, of a very brown color, the eye bright, the wig short
and chestnut-brown. He is said to be haughty and disdainful; he speaks at
length, with spirit and erudition." [Letter of information to the Very
Illustrious Giovanni Zon, Secretary of the August Council of Ten at Venice.
2 October 1772.]

Returning to Venice after an absence of eighteen years, Casanova
renewed his acquaintance with many old friends, among whom were:

The Christine of the Memoirs. Charles, who married Christine, the
marriage being arranged by Casanova while in Venice in 1747, was of
financial assistance to Casanova, who "found him a true friend." Charles
died "a few months before my last departure from Venice," in 1783.

Mlle. X—— C—— V——, really Giustina de Wynne, widow of the
Count Rosenberg, Austrian Ambassador at Venice. "Fifteen years
afterwards, I saw her again and she was a widow, happy enough, apparently,
and enjoying a great reputation on account of her rank, wit and social
qualities, but our connection was never renewed."

Callimena, who was kind to him "for love's sake alone" at Sorrento in
1770.

Marcoline, the girl he took away from his younger brother, the Abby
Casanova, at Geneva in 1763.

Father Balbi, the companion of his flight from The Leads.

Doctor Gozzi, his former teacher at Padua, now become Arch-Priest of
St. George of the Valley, and his sister Betting. "When I went to pay him a
visit . . . she breathed her last in my arms, in 1776, twenty-four hours after
my arrival. I will speak of her death in due time."

Angela Toselli, his first passion. In 1758 this girl married the advocate
Francesco Barnaba Rizzotti, and in the following year she gave birth to a
daughter, Maria Rizzotti (later married to a M. Kaiser) who lived at
Vienna and whose letters to Casanova were preserved at Dux.

C—— C——, the young girl whose love affair with Casanova became
involved with that of the nun M—— M—— Casanova found her in Venice
"a widow and poorly off."

The dancing girl Binetti, who assisted Casanova in his flight from
Stuttgart in 1760, whom he met again in London in 1763, and who was the
cause of his duel with Count Branicki at Warsaw in 1766. She danced
frequently at Venice between 1769 and 1780.

The good and indulgent Mme. Manzoni, "of whom I shall have to speak
very often."

The patricians Andrea Memmo and his brother Bernardo who, with P.
Zaguri were personages of considerable standing in the Republic and who
remained his constant friends. Andrea Memmo was the cause of the
embarrassment in which Mlle. X—— C—— V—— found herself in Paris
and which Casanova vainly endeavored to remove by applications of his
astonishing specific, the 'aroph of Paracelsus'.

It was at the house of these friends that Casanova became acquainted
with the poet, Lorenzo Da Ponte. "I made his acquaintance," says the latter,
in his own Memoirs, "at the house of Zaguri and the house of Memmo, who
both sought after his always interesting conversation, accepting from this
man all he had of good, and closing their eyes, on account of his genius,
upon the perverse parts of his nature."

Lorenzo Da Ponte, known above all as Mozart's librettist, and whose
youth much resembled that of Casanova, was accused of having eaten ham
on Friday and was obliged to flee from Venice in 1777, to escape the
punishment of the Tribunal of Blasphemies. In his Memoirs, he speaks
unsparingly of his compatriot and yet, as M. Rava notes, in the numerous
letters he wrote Casanova, and which were preserved at Dux, he proclaims
his friendship and admiration.

Irene Rinaldi, whom he met again at Padua in 1777, with her daughter
who "had become a charming girl; and our acquaintance was renewed in the
tenderest manner."

The ballet-girl Adelaide, daughter of Mme. Soavi, who was also a dancer,
and of a M. de Marigny.

Barbara, who attracted Casanova's attention at Trieste, in 1773, while he
was frequenting a family named Leo, but toward whom he had maintained
an attitude of respect. This girl, on meeting him again in 1777, declared that
"she had guessed my real feelings and had been amused by my foolish
restraint."

At Pesaro, the Jewess Leah, with whom he had the most singular
experiences at Ancona in 1772.

II
RELATIONS WITH THE INQUISITORS

Soon after reaching Venice, Casanova learned that the Landgrave of
Hesse Cassel, following the example of other German princes, wished a
Venetian correspondent for his private affairs. Through some influence he
believed he might obtain this small employment; but before applying for the
position he applied to the Secretary of the Tribunal for permission.
Apparently nothing came of this, and Casanova obtained no definite
employment until 1776.

Early in 1776, Casanova entered the service of the Tribunal of
Inquisitors as an "occasional Confidant," under the fictitious name of
Antonio Pratiloni, giving his address as "at the Casino of S. E. Marco
Dandolo."

In October 1780, his appointment was more definitely established and he
was given a salary of fifteen ducats a month. This, with the six sequins of
life-income left by Barbaro and the six given by Dandolo, gave him a
monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four lires—about seventy-four

U. S. dollars—from 1780 until his break with the Tribunal at the end of
1781.

In the Archives of Venice are preserved forty-eight letters from
Casanova, including the Reports he wrote as a "Confidant," all in the same
handwriting as the manuscript of the Memoirs. The Reports may be divided
into two classes: those referring to commercial or industrial matters, and
those referring to the public morals.

Among those of the first class, we find:

A Report relating to Casanova's success in having a change made in the
route of the weekly diligence running from Trieste to Mestre, for which
service, rendered during Casanova's residence at Trieste in 1773, he
received encouragement and the sum of one hundred ducats from the
Tribunal.

A Report, the 8th September 1776, with information concerning the
rumored project of the future Emperor of Austria to invade Dalmatia after
the death of Maria Theresa. Casanova stated he had received this
information from a Frenchman, M. Salz de Chalabre, whom he had known
in Paris twenty years before. This M. Chalabre [printed Calabre] was the
pretended nephew of Mme. Amelin. "This young man was as like her as
two drops of water, but she did not find that a sufficient reason for avowing
herself his mother." The boy was, in fact, the son of Mme. Amelin and of
M. de Chalabre, who had lived together for a long time.

A Report, the 12th of December 1776, of a secret mission to Trieste, in
regard to a project of the court of Vienna for making Fiume a French port;
the object being to facilitate communications between this port and the
interior of Hungary. For this inquiry, Casanova received sixteen hundred
lires, his expenditures amounting to seven hundred and sixty-six lires.

A Report, May-July 1779, of an excursion in the market of Ancona for
information concerning the commercial relations of the Pontifical States
with the Republic of Venice. At Forli, in the course of this excursion,
Casanova visited the dancing-girl Binetti. For this mission Casanova
received forty-eight sequins.

A Report, January 1780, remarking a clandestine recruiting carried out by
a certain Marrazzani for the [Prussian] regiment of Zarembal.

A Report, the 11th October 1781, regarding a so-called Baldassare
Rossetti, a Venetian subject living at Trieste, whose activities and
projects were of a nature to prejudice the commerce and industry of the
Republic.

Among the Reports relating to public morals may be noted:

December 1776. A Report on the seditious character of a ballet called
"Coriolanus." The back of this report is inscribed: "The impressario of S.
Benedetto, Mickel de l'Agata, shall be summoned immediately; it has been
ordered that he cease, under penalty of his life, from giving the ballet
Coriolanus at the theater. Further, he is to collect and deposit all the printed
programmes of this ballet."

December 1780. A Report calling to the attention of the Tribunal the
scandalous disorders produced in the theaters when the lights were
extinguished.

3rd May 1781. A Report remarking that the Abbe Carlo Grimani believed
himself exempt, in his position as a priest, from the interdiction laid on
patricians against frequenting foreign ministers and their suites. On the back
of this Report is written: "Ser Jean Carlo, Abbe Grimani, to be gently

reminded, by the Secretary, of the injunction to abstain from all commerce
with foreign ministers and their adherents."

Venetian nobles were forbidden under penalty of death from holding any
communication with foreign ambassadors or their households. This was
intended as a precaution to preserve the secrets of the Senate.

26th November 1781. A Report concerning a painting academy where
nude studies were made, from models of both sexes, while scholars only
twelve or thirteen years of age were admitted, and where dilettantes who
were neither painters nor designers, attended the sessions.

22nd December 1781. By order, Casanova reported to the Tribunal a list
of the principal licentious or antireligious books to be found in the libraries
and private collections at Venice: la Pucelle; la Philosophie de l'Histoire;
L'Esprit d'Helvetius; la Sainte Chandelle d'Arras; les Bijoux indiscrets; le
Portier des Chartreux; les Posies de Baffo; Ode a Priape; de Piron; etc., etc.

In considering this Report, which has been the subject of violent
criticism, we should bear in mind three points:

first—the Inquisitors required this information; second—no one in their
employ could have been in a better position to give it than Casanova; third
—Casanova was morally and economically bound, as an employee of the
Tribunal, to furnish the information ordered, whatever his personal distaste
for the undertaking may have been. We may even assume that he permitted
himself to express his feelings in some indiscreet way, and his break with
the Tribunal followed, for, at the end of 1781, his commission was
withdrawn. Certainly, Casanova's almost absolute dependence on his salary,
influenced the letter he wrote the Inquisitors at this time.

"To the Illustrious and Most Excellent Lords, the Inquisitors of State:

"Filled with confusion, overwhelmed with sorrow and repentance,
recognizing myself absolutely unworthy of addressing my vile letter to Your
Excellencies confessing that I have failed in my duty in the opportunities
which presented themselves, I, Jacques Casanova, invoke, on my knees, the
mercy of the Prince; I beg that, in compassion and grace, there may be
accorded me that which, in all justice and on reflection, may be refused me.

"I ask the Sovereign Munificence to come to my aid, so that, with the
means of subsistence, I may apply myself vigorously, in the future, to the
service to which I have been privileged.

"After this respectful supplication, the wisdom of Your Excellencies may
judge the disposition of my spirit and of my intentions."

The Inquisitors decided to award Casanova one month's pay, but
specified that thereafter he would receive salary only when he rendered
important services.

In 1782 Casanova made a few more Reports to the Tribunal, for one of
which, regarding the failure of an insurance and commercial house at
Trieste, he received six sequins. But the part of a guardian of the public
morals, even through necessity, was undoubtedly unpleasant to him; and, in
spite of the financial loss, it may be that his release was a relief.

III
FRANCESCA BUSCHINI

Intimately connected with Casanova's life at this period was a girl named
Francesca Buschini. This name does not appear in any of the literary,
artistic or theatrical records of the period, and, of the girl, nothing is known

other than that which she herself tells us in her letters to Casanova. From
these very human letters, however, we may obtain, not only certain facts,
but also, a very excellent idea of her character. Thirty-two of her letters,
dated between July 1779 and October 1787, written in the Venetian dialect,
were preserved in the library at Dux.

She was a seamstress, although often without work, and had a brother, a
younger sister and also a mother living with her. The probabilities are that
she was a girl of the most usual sort, but greatly attached to Casanova who,
even in his poverty, must have dazzled her as a being from another world.
She was his last Venetian love, and remained a faithful correspondent until
1787; and it is chiefly from her letters, in which she comments on news
contained in Casanova's letters to her, that light is thrown on the Vienna-
Paris period, particularly, of Casanova's life. For this, Francesca has placed
us greatly in her debt.

With this girl, at least between 1779 and 1782, Casanova rented a small
house at Barbaria delle Tole, near S. Giustina, from the noble Pesaro at S.
Stae. Casanova, always in demand for his wit and learning, often took
dinner in the city. He knew that a place always awaited him at the house of
Memmo and at that of Zaguri and that, at the table of these patricians, who
were distinguished by their intellectual superiority, he would meet men
notable in science and letters. Being so long and so closely connected with
theatrical circles, he was often seen at the theater, with Francesca. Thus, the
9th August 1786, the poor girl, in an excess of chagrin writes: "Where are
all the pleasures which formerly you procured me? Where are the theatres,
the comedies which we once saw together?"

On the 28th July 1779, Francesca wrote:

"Dearest and best beloved,

" . . . In the way of novelties, I find nothing except that S. E. Pietro
Zaguri has arrived at Venice; his servant has been twice to ask for you, and I
have said you were still at the Baths of Abano . . ."

The Casanova-Buschini establishment kept up relations, more or less
frequent and intimate, with a few persons, most of whom are mentioned in
Francesca's letters; the Signora Anzoletta Rizzotti; the Signora Elisabeth
Catrolli, an ancient comedienne; the Signora Bepa Pezzana; the Signora
Zenobia de Monti, possibly the mother of that Carlo de Monti, Venetian
Consul at Trieste, who was a friend to Casanova and certainly contributed
toward obtaining his pardon from the Inquisitors; a M. Lunel, master of
languages, and his wife.

IV

PUBLICATIONS

Casanova's principal writings during this period were:

His translation of the Iliad, the first volume of which was issued in 1775,
the second in 1777 and the third in 1778.

During his stay at Abano in 1778, he wrote the Scrutinio del libro,
eulogies of M. de Voltaire "by various hands." In the dedication of this
book, to the Doge Renier, he wrote, "This little book has recently come
from my inexperienced pen, in the hours of leisure which are frequent at
Abano for those who do not come only for the baths."

From January until July 1780, he published, anonymously, a series of
miscellaneous small works, seven pamphlets of about one hundred pages

each, distributed at irregular intervals to subscribers.

From the 7th October to the end of December, 1780, on the occasions of
the representations given by a troupe of French comedians at the San
Angelo theater, Casanova wrote a little paper called The Messenger of
Thalia. In one of the numbers, he wrote:

"French is not my tongue; I make no pretentions and, wrong or astray, I
place on the paper what heaven sends from my pen. I give birth to phrases
turned to Italian, either to see what they look like or to produce a style, and
often, also, to draw, into a purist's snare, some critical doctor who does not
know my humor or how my offense amuses me."

The "little romance" referred to in the following letter to "Mlle.
X—— C—— V——," appeared in 1782, with the title; 'Di anecdoti
vinizani
militari a amorosi del secolo decimo quarto sotto i dogati di Giovanni
Gradenigoe di Giovanni Dolfin'. Venezia, 1782.

V MLLE. X . . . C . . . V. . .

In 1782, a letter written by this lady, Giustina de Wynne, referring to a
visit to Venice of Paul I, Grand Duke, afterward Emperor of Russia, and his
wife, was published under the title of Du sejour des Comptes du Nord a
Venise en janvier mdcclxxxii. If he had not previously done so, Casanova
took this occasion to recall himself to the memory of this lady to whom he
had once been of such great service. And two very polite letters were
exchanged:

"Madam,

"The fine epistle which V. E. has allowed to be printed upon the sojourn
of C. and of the C. du Nord in this city, exposes you, in the position of an
author, to endure the compliments of all those who trouble themselves to
write. But I flatter myself, Madam, that V. E. will not disdain mine.

"The little romance, Madam, a translation from my dull and rigid pen, is
not a gift but a very paltry offering which I dare make to the superiority of
your merit.

"I have found, Madam, in your letter, the simple, flowing style of
gentility, the one which alone a woman of condition who writes to her
friend may use with dignity. Your digressions and your thoughts are flowers
which . . . (forgive an author who pilfers from you the delicious
nonchalance of an amiable writer) or . . . a will-o'-the-wisp which, from
time to time, issues from the work, in spite of the author, and burns the
paper.

"I aspire, Madam, to render myself favorable to the deity to which reason
advises me to make homage. Accept then the offering and render happy he
who makes it with your indulgence.

"I have the honor to sign myself, if you will kindly permit me, with very
profound respect.

"Giacomo Casanova."

"Monsieur

"I am very sensible, Monsieur, of the distinction which comes to me from
your approbation of my little pamphlet. The interest of the moment, its
references and the exaltation of spirits have gained for it the tolerance and
favorable welcome of the good Venetians. It is to your politeness in

particular, Monsieur, that I believe is due the marked success which my
work has had with you. I thank you for the book which you sent me and I
will risk thanking you in advance for the pleasure it will give me. Be
persuaded of my esteem for yourself and for your talents. And I have the
honor to be, Monsieur.

"Your very humble servant de Wynne de Rosemberg."

Among Casanova's papers at Dux was a page headed "Souvenir," dated
the
2nd September 1791, and beginning: "While descending the staircase, the
Prince de Rosemberg told me that Madame de Rosemberg was dead . . . .
This Prince de Rosemberg was the nephew of Giustina."

Giustina died, after a long illness, at Padua, the 21st August 1791, at the
age of fifty-four years and seven months.

VI

LAST DAYS AT VENICE

Toward the end of 1782, doubtless convinced that he could expect nothing
more from the Tribunal, Casanova entered the service of the Marquis
Spinola as a secretary. Some years before, a certain Carletti, an officer in
the service of the court of Turin, had won from the Marquis a wager of two
hundred and fifty sequins. The existence of this debt seemed to have
completely disappeared from the memory of the loser. By means of the firm
promise of a pecuniary recompense, Casanova intervened to obtain from his
patron a written acknowledgment of the debt owing to Carletti. His effort
was successful; but instead of clinking cash, Carletti contented himself with

remitting to the negotiator an assignment on the amount of the credit.
Casanova's anger caused a violent dispute, in the course of which Carlo
Grimani, at whose house the scene took place, placed him in the wrong and
imposed silence.

The irascible Giacomo conceived a quick resentment. To discharge his
bile, he found nothing less than to publish in the course of the month of
August, under the title of: 'Ne amori ne donne ovvero la Stalla d'Angia
repulita', a libel in which Jean Carlo Grimani, Carletti, and other notable
persons were outraged under transparent mythological pseudonyms.

This writing embroiled the author with the entire body of the Venetian
nobility.

To allow the indignation against him to quiet down, Casanova went to
pass some days at Trieste, then returned to Venice to put his affairs in order.
The idea of recommencing his wandering life alarmed him. "I have lived
fifty-eight years," he wrote, "I could not go on foot with winter at hand, and
when I think of starting on the road to resume my adventurous life, I laugh
at myself in the mirror."

PART THE SECOND VIENNA-PARIS

I

1783-1785

TRAVELS IN 1783

Casanova left Venice in January 1783, and went to Vienna.

On the 16th April Elisabeth Catrolli wrote to him at Vienna:

"Dearest of friends,

"Your letter has given me great pleasure. Be assured, I infinitely regret
your departure. I have but two sincere friends, yourself and Camerani. I do
not hope for more. I could be happy if I could have at least one of you near
me to whom I could confide my cruel anxieties.

"To-day, I received from Camerani a letter informing me that, in a former
one, he had sent me a bill of exchange: I did not receive it, and I fear it has
been lost.

"Dear friend, when you reach Paris, clasp him to your heart for me . . . In
regard to Chechina [Francesca Buschini] I would say that I have not seen

her since the day I took her your letter. Her mother is the ruin of that poor
girl; let that suffice; I will say no more . . . . "

After leaving Venice, Casanova apparently took an opportunity to pay his
last disrespects to the Tribunal. At least, in May 1783, M. Schlick, French
Secretary at Venice, wrote to Count Vergennes: "Last week there reached
the State Inquisitors an anonymous letter stating that, on the 25th of this
month, an earthquake, more terrible than that of Messina, would raze
Venice to the ground. This letter has caused a panic here. Many patricians
have left the capital and others will follow their example. The author of the
anonymous letter . . . is a certain Casanova, who wrote from Vienna and
found means to slip it into the Ambassador's own mails."

In about four months, Casanova was again on the way to Italy. He paused
for a week at Udine and arrived at Venice on the 16th June. Without leaving
his barge, he paused at his house just long enough to salute Francesca. He
left Mestre on Tuesday the 24th June and on the same day dined at the
house of F. Zanuzzi at Bassano. On the 25th he left Bassano by post and
arrived in the evening at Borgo di Valsugano.

On the 29th, he wrote to Francesca from the Augsbourg. He had stopped
at
Innsbruck to attend the theater and was in perfect health. He had reached
Frankfort in forty-eight hours, traveling eighteen posts without
stopping.

From Aix-la-Chapelle, on the 16th July, he wrote Francesca that he had
met, in that city, Cattina, the wife of Pocchini. Pocchini was sick and in
deep misery. Casanova, recalling all the abominable tricks this rogue had
played on him refused Cattina the assistance she begged for in tears,
laughed in her face, and said: "Farewell, I wish you a pleasant death."

At Mayence, Casanova embarked on the Rhine in company with the
Marquis Durazzo, former Austrian Ambassador at Venice. The voyage was
excellent and in two days he arrived at Cologne, in rugged health, sleeping
well and eating like a wolf.

On the 30th July he wrote to Francesca from Spa and in this letter
enclosed a good coin. Everything was dear at Spa; his room cost eight lires
a day with everything else in proportion.

On the 6th September he wrote from Antwerp to one of his good friends,
the Abbe Eusebio della Lena, telling him that at Spa an English woman who
had a passion for speaking Latin wished to submit him to trials which he
judged it unnecessary to state precisely. He refused all her proposals,
saying, however, that he would not reveal them to anyone; but that he did
not feel he should refuse also "an order on her banker for twenty-five
guineas."

On the 9th he wrote to Francesca from Brussels, and on the 12th he sent
her a bill of exchange on the banker Corrado for one hundred and fifty lires.
He said he had been intoxicated "because his reputation had required it."
"This greatly astonishes me," Francesca responded, "for I have never seen
you intoxicated nor even illuminated . . . . I am very happy that the wine
drove away the inflammation in your teeth."

Practically all information of Casanova's movements in 1783 and 1784 is
obtained from Francesca's letters which were in the library at Dux.

In her letters of the 27th June and 11th July, Francesca wrote Casanova
that she had directed the Jew Abraham to sell Casanova's satin habit and
velvet breeches, but could not hope for more than fifty lires because they
were patched. Abraham had observed that at one time the habit had been
placed in pledge with him by Casanova for three sequins.

On the 6th September, she wrote:

"With great pleasure, I reply to the three dear letters which you wrote me
from Spa: the first of the 6th August, from which I learned that your
departure had been delayed for some days to wait for someone who was to
arrive in that city. I was happy that your appetite had returned, because
good cheer is your greatest pleasure . . . .

"In your second letter which you wrote me from Spa on the 16th August,
I noted with sorrow that your affairs were not going as you wished. But
console yourself, dear friend, for happiness will come after trouble; at least,
I wish it so, also, for you yourself can imagine in what need I find myself, I
and all my family . . . . I have no work, because I have not the courage to
ask it of anyone. My mother has not earned even enough to pay for the gold
thread with the little cross which you know I love. Necessity made me sell
it.

"I received your last letter of the 20th August from Spa with another
letter for S. E. the Procurator Morosini. You directed me to take it to him
myself, and on Sunday the last day of August, I did not fail to go there
exactly at three o'clock. At once on my arrival, I spoke to a servant who
admitted me without delay; but, my dear friend, I regret having to send you
an unpleasant message. As soon as I handed him the letter, and before he
even opened it, he said to me, 'I always know Casanova's affairs which
trouble me.' After having read hardly more than a page, he said: 'I know not
what to do!' I told him that, on the 6th of this month, I was to write you at
Paris and that, if he would do me the honor of giving me his reply, I would
put it in my letter. Imagine what answer he gave me! I was much surprised!
He told me that I should wish you happiness but that he would not write to
you again. He said no more. I kissed his hands and left. He did not give me
even a sou. That is all he said to me . . . .

"S. E. Pietro Zaguri sent to me to ask if I knew where you were, because
he had written two letters to Spa and had received no reply . . . ."

II
PARIS

On the night of the 18th or 19th September 1783, Casanova arrived at
Paris.

On the 30th he wrote Francesca that he had been well received by his
sister-in-law and by his brother, Francesco Casanova, the painter. Nearly all
his friends had departed for the other world, and he would now have to
make new ones, which would be difficult as he was no longer pleasing to
the women.

On the 14th October he wrote again, saying that he was in good health
and that Paris was a paradise which made him feel twenty years old. Four
letters followed; in the first, dated from Paris on S. Martin's Day, he told
Francesco not to reply for he did not know whether he would prolong his
visit nor where he might go. Finding no fortune in Paris, he said he would
go and search elsewhere. On the 23rd, he sent one hundred and fifty lires;
"a true blessing," to the poor girl who was always short of money.

Between times, Casanova passed eight days at Fontainebleau, where he
met "a charming young man of twenty-five," the son of "the young and
lovely O'Morphi" who indirectly owed to him her position, in 1752, as the
mistress of Louis XV. "I wrote my name on his tablets and begged him to
present my compliments to his mother."

He also met, in the same place, his own son by Mme. Dubois, his former
housekeeper at Soleure who had married the good M. Lebel. "We shall hear
of the young gentleman in twenty-one years at Fontainebleau."

"When I paid my third visit to Paris, with the intention of ending my days
in that capital, I reckoned on the friendship of M. d'Alembert, but he died,
like, Fontenelle, a fortnight after my arrival, toward the end of 1783."

It is interesting to know that, at this time, Casanova met his famous
contemporary, Benjamin Franklin. "A few days after the death of the
illustrious d'Alembert," Casanova assisted, at the old Louvre, in a session of
the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. "Seated beside the learned
Franklin, I was a little surprised to hear Condorcet ask him if he believed
that one could give various directions to an air balloon. This was the
response: 'The matter is still in its infancy, so we must wait.' I was
surprised. It is not believable that the great philosopher could ignore the fact
that it would be impossible to give the machine any other direction than that
governed by the air which fills it, but these people 'nil tam verentur, quam
ne dubitare aliqua de re videantur."

On the 13th November, Casanova left Paris in company with his brother,
Francesco, whose wife did not accompany him. "His new wife drove him
away from Paris."

"Now [1797 or 1798] I feel that I have seen Paris and France for the last
time. That popular effervescence [the French Revolution] has disgusted me
and I am too old to hope to see the end of it."

III
VIENNA

On the 29th November, Casanova wrote from Frankfort that a drunken
postilion had upset him and in the fall he had dislocated his left shoulder,
but that a good bone-setter had restored it to place. On the 1st December he
wrote that he was healed, having taken medicine and having been blooded.
He promised to send Francesca eight sequins to pay her rent. He reached
Vienna about the 7th of December and on the 15th sent Francesco a bill of
exchange for eight sequins and two lires.

On the last day of 1783, Francesca wrote to him at Vienna:

"I see by your good letter that you will go to Dresden and then to Berlin
and that you will return to Vienna the 10th January . . . . I am astonished,
my dear friend, at the great journeys you make in this cold weather, but,
still, you are a great man, big-hearted, full of spirit and courage; you travel
in this terrible cold as though it were nothing . . . . "

On the 9th January, Casanova wrote from Dessau to his brother
Giovanni, proposing to make peace with him, but without results. On the
27th, he was at Prague. By the 16th February, he was again in Vienna, after
a trip lasting sixty-two days. His health was perfect, and he had gained flesh
due, as he wrote Francesca, to his contented mind which was no longer
tormented.

In February, he entered the service of M. Foscarini, Venetian
Ambassador, "to write dispatches."

On the 10th March, Francesca wrote:

"Dearest of Friends, I reply at once to your good letter of the 28th
February which I received Sunday . . . . I thank you for your kindness which
makes you say that you love me and that when you have money you will
send me some . . . but that at the moment you are dry as a salamander. I do

not know what sort of animal that is. But as for me I am certainly dry of
money and I am consumed with the hope of having some . . . . I see that you
were amused at the Carnival and that you were four times at the masked
ball, where there were two hundred women, and that you danced minuets
and quadrilles to the great astonishment of the ambassador Foscarini who
told everyone that you were sixty years old, although in reality you have not
yet reached your sixtieth year. You might well laugh at that and say that he
must be blind to have such an idea.

"I see that you assisted, with your brother, at a grand dinner at the
Ambassador's . . . .

"You say that you have read my letters to your brother and that he salutes
me. Make him my best compliments and thank him. You ask me to advise
you whether, if he should happen to return to Venice with you, he could
lodge with you in your house. Tell him yes, because the chickens are always
in the loft and make no dirt; and, as for the dogs, one watches to see that
they do not make dirt. The furniture of the apartment is already in place; it
lacks only a wardrobe and the little bed which you bought for your nephew
and the mirror; as for the rest, everything is as you left it. . . ."

It is possible that, at the "grand dinner," Casanova was presented to
Count Waldstein, without whose kindness to Casanova the Memoirs
probably would never have been written. The Lord of Dux, Joseph Charles
Emmanuel Waldstein-Wartenberg, Chamberlain to Her Imperial Majesty,
descendant of the great Wallenstein, was the elder of the eleven children of
Emmanuel Philibert, Count Waldstein, and Maria Theresa, Princess
Liechtenstein. Very egotistic and willful in his youth, careless of his affairs,
and an imprudent gambler, at thirty years of age he had not yet settled
down. His mother was disconsolated that her son could not separate himself
from occupations "so little suited to his spirit and his birth:"

On the 13th March 1784, Count Lamberg wrote Casanova: "I know M. le
C. de Waldstein through having heard him praised by judges worthy of
appreciating the transcendent qualities of more than one kind peculiar to the
Count. I congratulate you on having such a Maecenas, and I congratulate
him in his turn on having chosen such a man as yourself." Which last
remark certainly foreshadows the library at Dux.

Later, on the lath March, 1785, Zaguri wrote: "In two months at the
latest, all will be settled. I am very happy." Referring further, it is
conjectured, to Casanova's hopes of placing himself with the Count.

IV
LETTERS FROM FRANCESCA

20th March 1784. "I see that you will print one of your books; you say
that you will send me two hundred copies which I can sell at thirty sous
each; that you will tell Zaguri and that he will advise those who wish copies
to apply to me . . ."

This book was the Lettre historico-critique sur un fait connu dependant
d'une cause peu connue, adressee au duc de * * *, 1784.

3rd April 1784. "I see with pleasure that you have gone to amuse yourself
in company with two ladies and that you have traveled five posts to see the
Emperor [Joseph II] . . . . You say that your fortune consists of one sequin . .
. . I hope that you obtained permission to print your book, that you will send
me the two hundred copies, and that I may be able to sell them. . . ."

14th April 1784. "You say that a man without money is the image of
death, that he is a very wretched animal. I learn with regret that I am

unlikely to see you at the approaching Festival of the Ascension . . . that
you hope to see me once more before dying . . . . You make me laugh,
telling me that at Vienna a balloon was made which arose in the air with six
persons and that it might be that you would go up also."

28th April 1784. "I see, to my lively regret, that you have been in bed
with your usual ailment [hemorrhoids]. But I am pleased to know that you
are better. You certainly should go to the baths . . . . I have been discouraged
in seeing that you have not come to Venice because you have no money ….
P. S. Just at this moment I have received a good letter, enclosing a bill of
exchange, which I will go and have paid . . . ."

5th May 1784. "I went to the house of M. Francesco Manenti, at S. Polo
di Campo, with my bill of exchange, and he gave me at once eighteen
pieces of ten lires each . . . . I figure that you made fun of me saying
seriously that you will go up in a balloon and that, if the wind is favorable,
you will go in the air to Trieste and then from Trieste to Venice."

19th May 1784. "I see, to my great regret, that you are in poor health and
still short of money …. You say that you need twenty sequins and that you
have only twenty trari . . . . I hope that your book is printed. . . ."

29th May 1784. "I note with pleasure that you are going to take the baths;
but I regret that this treatment enfeebles and depresses you. It reassures me
that you do not fail in your appetite nor your sleep…. I hope I will not hear
you say again that you are disgusted with everything, and no longer in love
with life . . . . I see that for you, at this moment, fortune sleeps . . . . I am not
surprised that everything is so dear in the city where you are, for at Venice
also one pays dearly and everything is priced beyond reach."

Zaguri wrote Casanova the 12th May, that he had met Francesca in the
Mongolfieri casino. And on the 2nd June Casanova, doubtless feeling his

helplessness in the matter of money, and the insufficiency of his occasional
remittances, and suspicious of Francesca's loyalty, wrote her a letter of
renunciation. Then came her news of the sale of his books; and eighteen
months passed before he wrote to her again.

On the 12th June 1784, Francesca replied: "I could not expect to convey
to you, nor could you figure, the sorrow that tries me in seeing that you will
not occupy yourself any more with me . . . . I hid from you that I had been
with that woman who lived with us, with her companion, the cashier of the
Academie des Mongolfceristes. Although I went to this Academy with
prudence and dignity, I did not want to write you for fear you would scold
me. That is the only reason, and hereafter you may be certain of my
sincerity and frankness. . . . I beg you to forgive me this time, if I write you
something I have never written for fear that you would be angry with me
because I had not told you. Know then that four months ago, your books
which were on the mezzanine were sold to a library for the sum of fifty
lires, when we were in urgent need. It was my mother who did it. . . ."

26th June 1784. ". . . Mme. Zenobia [de Monti] has asked me if I would
enjoy her company. Certain that you would consent I have allowed her to
come and live with me. She has sympathy for me and has always loved
me."

7th July 1784. "Your silence greatly disturbs me! To receive no more of
your letters! By good post I have sent you three letters, with this one, and
you have not replied to any of them. Certainly, you have reason for being
offended at me, because I hid from you something which you learned from
another . . . . But you might have seen, from my last letter, that I have
written you all the truth about my fault and that I have asked your pardon
for not writing it before…. Without you and your help, God knows what
will become of us…. For the rent of your chamber Mme. Zenobia will give

us eight lires a month and five lires for preparing her meals. But what can
one do with thirteen lires! . . . I am afflicted and mortified. . . . Do not
abandon me."

V
LAST DAYS AT VIENNA

In 1785, at Vienna, Casanova ran across Costa, his former secretary who,
in 1761, had fled from him taking "diamonds, watches, snuffbox, linen, rich
suits and a hundred louis." "In 1785, I found this runagate at Vienna. He
was then Count Erdich's man, and when we come to that period, the reader
shall hear what I did."

Casanova did not reach this period, in writing his Memoirs, but an
account of this meeting is given by Da Ponte, who was present at it, in his
Memoirs. Costa had met with many misfortunes, as he told Casanova, and
had himself been defrauded. Casanova threatened to have him hanged, but
according to Da Ponte, was dissuaded from this by counter accusations
made by Costa.

Da Ponte's narration of the incident is brilliant and amusing, in spite of
our feeling that it is maliciously exaggerated: "Strolling one morning in the
Graben with Casanova, I suddenly saw him knit his brows, squawk, grind
his teeth, twist himself, raise his hands skyward, and, snatching himself
away from me, throw himself on a man whom I seemed to know, shouting
with a very loud voice: 'Murderer, I have caught thee.' A crowd having
gathered as a result of this strange act and yell, I approached them with
some disgust; nevertheless, I caught Casanova's hand and almost by force I
separated him from the fray. He then told me the story, with desperate

motions and gestures, and said that his antagonist was Gioachino Costa, by
whom he had been betrayed. This Gioachino Costa, although he had been
forced to become a servant by his vices and bad practices, and was at that
very time servant to a Viennese gentleman, was more or less of a poet. He
was, in fact, one of those who had honored me with their satire, when the
Emperor Joseph selected me as poet of his theater. Costa entered a cafe, and
while I continued to walk with Casanova, wrote and send him by a
messenger, the following verses:

"'Casanova, make no outcry;
You stole, indeed, as well as I;
You were the one who first taught me;
Your art I mastered thoroughly.
Silence your wisest course will be.'

"These verses had the desired effect. After a brief silence, Casanova
laughed and then said softly in my ear: 'The rogue is right.' He went into the
cafe and motioned to Costa to come out; they began to walk together
calmly, as if nothing had happened, and they parted shaking hands
repeatedly and seemingly calm and friendly. Casanova returned to me with
a cameo on his little finger, which by a strange coincidence, represented
Mercury, the god-protector of thieves. This was his greatest valuable, and it
was all that was left of the immense booty, but represented the character of
the two restored friends, perfectly."

Da Ponte precedes this account with a libellous narrative of Casanova's
relations with the Marquise d'Urfe, even stating that Casanova stole from
her the jewels stolen in turn by Costa, but, as M. Maynial remarks, we may
attribute this perverted account "solely to the rancour and antipathy of the
narrator." It is more likely that Casanova frightened Costa almost out of his
wits, was grimly amused at his misfortunes, and let him go, since there was

no remedy to Casanova's benefit, for his former rascality. Casanova's own
brief, anticipatory account is given in his Memoirs.

In 1797, correcting and revising his Memoirs, Casanova wrote: "Twelve
years ago, if it had not been for my guardian angel, I would have foolishly
married, at Vienna, a young, thoughtless girl, with whom I had fallen in
love." In which connection, his remark is interesting: "I have loved women
even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better; and whenever I
have been in danger of losing it, fate has come to my rescue."

While an identification of the "young, thoughtless girl" has been
impossible, M. Rava believes her to be "C. M.," the subject of a poem
found at Dux, written in duplicate, in Italian and French, and headed
"Giacomo Casanova, in love, to C. M."

"When, Catton, to your sight is shown the love Which all my tenderest
caresses prove, Feeling all pleasure's sharpest joys and fears, Burning one
moment, shivering the next, Caressing you while showering you with tears,
Giving each charm a thousand eager kisses, Wishing to touch at once a
thousand blisses And, at the ones beyond my power, vexed, Abandoned in a
furious desire, Leaving these charms for other charms that fire, Possessing
all and yet desiring Until, destroyed by excesses of pleasure, Finding no
words of love nor anything To express my fires overflowing measure Than
deepening sighs and obscure murmuring: Ah! Then you think to read my
inmost heart To find the love that can these signs impart ….Be not
deceived. These transports, amorous cries, These kisses, tears, desires and
heavy sighs, Of all the fire which devours me Could less than even the
lightest tokens be."

Evidently this same girl is the authoress of the two following letters
written by "Caton M . . . ." to Casanova in 1786.

12th April 1786. "You will infinitely oblige me if you will tell me to
whom you wrote such pretty things about me; apparently it is the Abbe Da
Ponte; but I would go to his house and, either he would prove that you had
written it or I would have the honor of telling him that he is the most
infamous traducer in the world. I think that the lovely picture which you
make of my future has not as much excuse as you may think, and, in spite
of your science, you deceive yourself…. But just now I will inform you of
all my wooers and you can judge for yourself by this whether I deserve all
the reproaches you made me in your last letter. It is two years since I came
to know the Count de K . . . ; I could have loved him but I was too honest to
be willing to satisfy his desires . . . . Some months afterward, I came to
know the Count de M . . . ; he was not so handsome as K . . . , but he
possessed every possible art for seducing a girl; I did everything for him,
but I never loved him as much as his friend. In fine, to tell you all my
giddinesses in a few words, I set everything right again with K . . . . and got
myself into a quarrel with M . . . ., then I left K. . . . and returned to M . . . .,
but at the house of the latter there was always an officer who pleased me
more than both the two others and who sometimes conducted me to the
house; then we found ourselves at the house of a friend, and it is of this
same officer that I am ill. So, my dear friend, that is all. I do not seek to
justify my past conduct; on the contrary, I know well that I have acted
badly…. I am much afflicted at being the cause of your remaining away
from Venice during the Carnival . . . . I hope to see you soon again and am,
with much love,

"Monsieur, your sincere

"Caton M. . . ."

16th July 1786. "I have spoken with the Abbe Da Ponte. He invited me to
come to his house because, he said, he had something to tell me for you. I

went there, but was received so coldly that I am resolved not to go there
again. Also, Mlle. Nanette affected an air of reserve and took at on herself
to read me lessons on what she was pleased to call my libertinism . . . . I
beg that you will write nothing more about me to these two very dangerous
personages…. Just now I will tell you of a little trick which I played on you,
which without doubt deserves some punishment. The young, little Kasper,
whom you formerly loved, came to ask me for the address of her dear
Monsieur de Casanova, so that she could write a very tender letter full of
recollections. I had too much politeness to wish to refuse a pretty girl, who
was once the favorite of my lover, so just a request, so I gave her the
address she wished; but I addressed the letter to a city far from you. Is it
not, my dear friend, that you would like well to know the name of the city,
so that you could secure the letter by posts. But you can depend on my
word that you will not know it until you have written me a very long letter
begging me very humbly to indicate the place where the divine letter of the
adorable object of your vows has gone. You might well make this sacrifice
for a girl in whom the Emperor [Joseph II] interests himself, for it is known
that, since your departure from Vienna, it is he who is teaching her French
and music; and apparently he takes the trouble of instructing her himself,
for she often goes to his house to thank him for his kindnesses to her, but I
know not in what way she expresses herself.

"Farewell, my dear friend. Think sometimes of me and believe that I am
your sincere friend."

On the 23rd April 1785, the ambassador Foscarini died, depriving
Casanova of a protector, probably leaving him without much money, and
not in the best of health. He applied for the position of secretary to Count
Fabris, his former friend, whose name had been changed from Tognolo, but
without success. Casanova then determined to go to Berlin in the hope of a
place in the Academy. On the 30th July he arrived at Bruen in Moravia,

where his friend Maximilian-Joseph, Count Lamberg gave him, among
other letters of recommendation, a letter addressed to Jean-Ferdinand Opiz,
Inspector of Finances and Banks at Czaslau, in which he wrote:

"A celebrated man, M. Casanova, will deliver to you, my dear friend, the
visiting card with which he is charged for Mme. Opiz and yourself.
Knowing this amiable and remarkable man, will mark an epoch in your life,
be polite and friendly to him, 'quod ipsi facies in mei memoriam faciatis'.
Keep yourself well, write to me, and if you can direct him to some honest
man at Carlsbad, fail not to do so. . . ."

On the 15th August 1785, M. Opiz wrote Count Lamberg about
Casanova's visit:

"Your letter of the 30th, including your cards for my wife and myself,
was delivered the first of this month by M. Casanova. He was very anxious
to meet the Princess Lubomirski again at Carlsbad. But as something about
his carriage was broken, he was obliged to stop in Czaslau for two hours
which he passed in my company. He has left Czaslau with the promise of
giving me a day on his return. I am already delighted. Even in the short
space of time in which I enjoyed his company, I found in him a man worthy
of our highest consideration and of our love, a benevolent philosopher
whose homeland is the great expanse of our planet (and not Venice alone)
and who values only the men in the kings . . . . I know absolutely no one at
Carlsbad, so I sincerely regret being unable to recommend him to anyone
there, according to your desire. He did not wish, on account of his haste, to
pause even at Prague and, consequently, to deliver, at this time, your letter
to Prince Furstemberg."

PART THE THIRD DUX 1786-1798

I

THE CASTLE AT DUX

It is uncertain how long Casanova remained at Carlsbad. While there,
however, he met again the Polish nobleman Zawoiski, with whom he had
gambled in Venice in 1746. "As to Zawoiski, I did not tell him the story
until I met him in Carlsbad old and deaf, forty years later." He did not
return to Czaslau, but in September 1785 he was at Teplitz where he found
Count Waldstein whom he accompanied to his castle at Dux.

From this time onward he remained almost constantly at the castle where
he was placed in charge of the Count's library and given a pension of one
thousand florins annually.

Describing his visit to the castle in 1899, Arthur Symons writes: "I had
the sensation of an enormous building: all Bohemian castles are big, but this
one was like a royal palace. Set there in the midst of the town, after the
Bohemian fashion, it opens at the back upon great gardens, as if it were in
the midst of the country. I walked through room after room, corridor after
corridor; everywhere there were pictures, everywhere portraits of
Wallenstein, and battle scenes in which he led on his troops. The library,
which was formed, or at least arranged, by Casanova, and which remains as

he left it, contains some twenty-five thousand volumes, some of them of
considerable value . . . . The library forms part of the Museum, which
occupies a ground-floor wing of the castle. The first room is an armoury, in
which all kinds of arms are arranged, in a decorative way, covering the
ceiling and the walls with strange patterns. The second room contains
pottery, collected by Casanova's Waldstein on his Eastern travels. The third
room is full of curious mechanical toys, and cabinets, and carvings in ivory.
Finally, we come to the library, contained in the two innermost rooms. The
book shelves are painted white and reach to the low vaulted ceilings, which
are whitewashed. At the end of a bookcase, in the corner of one of the
windows, hangs a fine engraved portrait of Casanova."

In this elaborate setting, Casanova found the refuge he so sadly needed
for his last years. The evil days of Venice and Vienna, and the problems and
makeshifts of mere existence, were left behind. And for this refuge he paid
the world with his Memoirs.

II
LETTERS FROM FRANCESCA

In 1786, Casanova renewed his correspondence with Francesca, who
wrote:

1st July 1786. "After a silence of a year and a half, I received from you
yesterday a good letter which has consoled me in informing me that you are
in perfect health. But, on the other hand, I was much pained to see that in
your letter you did not call me Friend, but Madame . . . . You have reason to
chide me and to reproach me for having rented a house without surety or
means of paying the rent. As to the advice you give me that if some honest

person would pay me my rent, or at least a part of it, I should have no
scruples about taking it because a little more, or a little less, would be of
little importance . . . . I declare to you that I have been disconsolated at
receiving from you such a reproach which is absolutely unjustified . . . . You
tell me that you have near you a young girl who merits all your solicitations
and your love, she and her family of six persons who adore you and give
you every attention; that she costs you all you have, so that you cannot send
me even a sou . . . . I am pained to hear you say that you will never return to
Venice, and yet I hope to see you again. . . ."

The "young girl" referred to in Francesca's letter was Anna-Dorothea
Kleer, daughter of the porter of the castle. This young girl became pregnant
in 1786 and Casanova was accused of seducing her. The guilty one,
however, was a painter named Schottner who married the unfortunate girl in
January 1787.

9th August 1786.

"My only true friend,

"It is two days since I received your dear letter; I was very happy to see
your writing …. You have reason to mortify me and reproach me in
recalling all the troubles I caused you, and especially that which you call
treachery, the sale of your books, of which in part I was not guilty . . . .
Forgive me, my dear friend, me and my foolish mother who, despite all my
objections, absolutely insisted on selling them. Regarding that which you
write me that you know that my mother, last year, told about that you had
been my ruin, this may unhappily be true, since you already know the evil
thoughts of my mother, who even says that you are still at Venice . . . .
When have I not been always sincere with you, and when have I not at least
listened to your good advices and offers? I am in a desperate situation,
abandoned by all, almost in the streets, almost about to be homeless . . . .

Where are all the pleasures which formerly you procured me? Where are
the theatres, the comedies which we once saw together? . . ."

5th January 1787.

"The first of the year I received your dear letter with the bill of exchange
for one hundred and twenty-five lires which you sent me so generously . . . .
You say you have forgiven me for all the troubles I have caused you. Forget
all, then, and do not accuse me any more of things which are but too true
and of which the remembrance alone cuts me to the heart . . . . You write me
that you have been forgotten by a person of whom you were very fond, that
she is married and that you have not seen her for more than a month."

The "person" referred to was Anna Kleer.

5th October 1787.

. . . . "Until the other day, I had been waiting for your arrival, hoping that
you would come to assist at the entry of the Procurator Memmo . . . . I see
by your good letter that you were not able to get away, since your presence
is nearly always necessary in the great castle . . . . I learn of the visit you
have received from the Emperor who wished to see your library of forty-
thousand volumes! . . . You say that you detest the chase and that you are
unhappy when politeness obliges you to go . . . . I am pleased to know that
you are in good health, that you are stout and that you have a good appetite
and sleep well . . . . I hope that the printing of your book [Histoire de ma
fuite] is going according to your wishes. If you go to Dresden for the
marriage of your niece, enjoy yourself for me . . . . Forget not to write to
me; this gives me such pleasure! Remember me. Full of confidence in your
friendship, I am, and always will be, your true and sincere friend,

"Francesca Buschina."

III

CORRESPONDENCE AND ACTIVITIES

In 1787, a book was published under the title of 'Dreissig Brief uber
Galizien by Traunpaur', which included this passage: "The most famous
adventurers of two sorts (there are two, in fact: honest adventurers and
adventurers of doubtful reputation) have appeared on the scene of the
kingdom of Poland. The best known on the shores of the Vistula are: the
miraculous Cagliostro: Boisson de Quency, grand charlatan, soldier of
fortune, decorated with many orders, member of numerous Academies: the
Venetian Casanova of Saint-Gall, a true savant, who fought a duel with
Count Branicki: the Baron de Poellnitz . . . the lucky Count Tomatis, who
knew so well how to correct fortune, and many others."

In June 1789, Casanova received a letter from Teresa Boisson de Quency,
the wife of the adventurer above referred to:

"Much honored Monsieur Giacomo:

"For a long time I have felt a very particular desire to evidence to you the
estimation due your spirit and your eminent qualities: the superb sonnet
augmented my wish. But the inconveniences of childbirth and the cares
required by a little girl whom I adore, made me defer this pleasure. During
my husband's absence, your last and much honored letter came to my
hands. Your amiable compliments to me, engage me to take the pen to give
you renewed assurance that you have in me a sincere admirer of your great
talent . . . . When I wish to point out a person who writes and thinks with
excellence, I name Monsieur Casanova . . . ."

In 1793, Teresa de Quency wished to return to Venice at which time
Zaguri wrote Casanova: "The Bassani has received letters from her husband
which tell her nothing more than that he is alive."

Casanova passed the months of May, June and July 1788 at Prague,
supervising the printing of the Histoire de ma fuite.

"I remember laughing very heartily at Prague, six years ago, on learning
that some thin-skinned ladies, on reading my flight from The Leads, which
was published at that date, took great offense at the above account, which
they thought I should have done well to leave out."

In May he was troubled with an attack of the grippe. In October, he was
in Dresden, apparently with his brother. Around this time "The
Magdalene," a painting by Correggio, was stolen from the Museum of the
Elector.

On the 30th October 1788, Casanova wrote to the Prince Belozelski,
Russian Minister to the Court of Dresden: "Tuesday morning, after having
embraced my dear brother, I got into a carriage to return here. At the barrier
on the outskirts of Dresden, I was obliged to descend, and six men carried
the two chests of my carriage, my two night-bags and my capelire into a
little chamber on the ground level, demanded my keys, and examined
everything . . . . The youngest of these infamous executors of such an order
told me they were searching for 'The Magdalene! . . . The oldest had the
impudence to put his hands on my waistcoat . . . . At last they let me go.

"This, my prince, delayed me so that I could not reach Petervalden by
daylight. I stopped at an evil tavern where, dying of famine and rage, I ate
everything I saw; and, wishing to drink and not liking beer, I gulped down
some beverage which my host told me was good and which did not seem
unpleasant. He told me that it was Pilnitz Moste. This beverage aroused a

rebellion in my guts. I passed the night tormented by a continual diarrhoea.
I arrived here the day before yesterday (the 28th), where I found an
unpleasant duty awaiting me. Two months ago, I brought a woman here to
cook, needing her while the Count is away; as soon as she arrived, I gave
her a room and I went to Leipzig. On returning here, I found three servants
in the hands of surgeons and all three blame my cook for putting them in
such a state. The Count's courier had already told me, at Leipzig, that she
had crippled him. Yesterday the Count arrived and would do nothing but
laugh, but I have sent her back and exhorted her to imitate the Magdalene.
The amusing part is that she is old, ugly and ill-smelling."

In 1789, 1791 and 1792, Casanova received three letters from Maddalena
Allegranti, the niece of J. B. Allegranti the innkeeper with whom Casanova
lodged at Florence in 1771. "This young person, still a child, was so pretty,
so gracious, with such spirit and such charms, that she incessantly distracted
me. Sometimes she would come into my chamber to wish me good-
morning . . . . Her appearance, her grace, the sound of her voice . . . were
more than I could resist; and, fearing the seduction would excuse mine, I
could find no other expedient than to take flight. . . . Some years later,
Maddalena became a celebrated musician."

At this period of Casanova's life, we hear again of the hussy who so upset
Casanova during his visit to London that he was actually on the point of
committing suicide through sheer desperation. On the 20th September 1789,
he wrote to the Princess Clari, sister of the Prince de Ligne: "I am struck by
a woman at first sight, she completely ravishes me, and I am perhaps lost,
for she may be a Charpillon."

There were, among the papers at Dux, two letters from Marianne
Charpillon, and a manuscript outlining the story of Casanova's relations
with her and her family, as detailed in the Memoirs: With the story in mind,

the letters from this girl, "the mistress, now of one, now of another," are of
interest:

"I know not, Monsieur, whether you forgot the engagement Saturday last;
as for me, I remember that you consented to give us the pleasure of having
you at dinner to-day, Monday, the 12th of the month. I would greatly like to
know whether your ill-humor has left you; this would please me. Farewell,
in awaiting the honor of seeing you.

"Marianne de Charpillon."

"Monsieur,

"As I have a part in all which concerns you, I am greatly put out to know
of the new illness which incommodes you; I hope that this will be so trifling
that we will have the pleasure of seeing you well and at our house, to-day or
to-morrow.

"And, in truth, the gift which you sent me is so pretty that I know not
how to express to you the pleasure it has given me and how much I value it;
and I cannot see why you must always provoke me by telling me that it is
my fault that you are filled with bile, while I am as innocent as a new-born
babe and would wish you so gentle and patient that your blood would
become a true clarified syrup; this will come to you if you follow my
advice. I am, Monsieur,

"Your very humble servant,

"[Marianne Charpillon]

"Wednesday at six o'clock"

On the 8th April, 1790, Zaguri wrote in reference to vertigo of which
Casanova complained: "Have you tried riding horseback? Do you not think
that is an excellent preservative? I tried it this last summer and I find myself
very well."

In 1790, Casanova had a conversation with the Emperor Joseph II at
Luxemburg, on the subject of purchased nobility, which he reports in the
Memoirs.

This same year, attending the coronation of Leopold at Prague, Casanova
met his grandson (and, probably, as he himself believed, his own son), the
son of Leonilda, who was the daughter of Casanova and Donna Lucrezia,
and who was married to the Marquis C . . . . In 1792, Leonilda wrote,
inviting Casanova to "spend the remainder of my days with her."

In February 1791, Casanova wrote to Countess Lamberg: "I have in my
capitularies more than four hundred sentences which pass for aphorisms
and which include all the tricks which place one word for another. One can
read in Livy that Hannibal overcame the Alps by means of vinegar. No
elephant ever uttered such a stupidity. Livy? Not at all. Livy was not a
beast; it is you who are, foolish instructor of credulous youth! Livy did not
say aceto which means vinegar, but aceta which means axe."

In April 1791, Casanova wrote to Carlo Grimani at Venice, stating that he
felt he had committed a great fault in publishing his libel, 'Ne amori ne
donne', and very humbly begging his pardon. Also that his Memoirs would
be composed of six volumes in octavo with a seventh supplementary
volume containing codicils.

In June, Casanova composed for the theater of Princess Clari, at Teplitz,
a piece entitled: 'Le Polemoscope ou la Calomnie demasquee par la
presence d'esprit, tragicomedie en trois actes'. The manuscript was

preserved at Dux, together with another form of the same, having the sub-
title of 'La Lorgnette Menteuse ou la Calomnie demasquee'. It may be
assumed that the staging of this piece was an occasion of pleasant activity
for Casanova.

In January 1792, during Count Waldstein's absence in London or Paris,
Casanova was embroiled with M. Faulkircher, maitre d'hotel, over the
unpleasant matter indicated in two of Casanova's letters to this functionary:

"Your rascally Vidierol . . . tore my portrait out of one of my books,
scrawled my name on it, with the epithet which you taught him and then
stuck it on the door of the privy ….

"Determined to make sure of the punishment of your infamous valet, and
wishing at the same time to give proof of my respect for Count Waldstein,
not forgetting that, as a last resort, I have the right to invade his jurisdiction,
I took an advocate, wrote my complaint and had it translated into German . .
. . Having heard of this at Teplitz, and having known that I would not save
your name, you came to my chamber to beg me to write whatever I wished
but not to name you because it would place you wrong before the War
Council and expose you to the loss of your pension . . . . I have torn up my
first complaint and have written a second in Latin, which an advocate of
Bilin has translated for me and which I have deposited at the office of the
judiciary at Dux…."

Following this matter, Casanova attended the Carnival at
Oberleutensdorf, and left at Dux a manuscript headed 'Passe temps de
Jacques Casanova de Seingalt pour le carnaval de l'an 1792 dans le bourg
d'Oberleutensdorf'. While in that city, meditating on the Faulkircher
incident, he wrote also 'Les quinze pardons, monologue nocturne du
bibliothecaire', also preserved in manuscript at Dux, in which we read:

"Gerron, having served twenty years as a simple soldier, acquired a great
knowledge of military discipline. This man was not yet seventy years old.
He had come to believe, partly from practice, partly from theory, that
twenty blows with a baton on the rump are not dishonoring. When the
honest soldier was unfortunate enough to deserve them, he accepted them
with resignation. The pain was sharp, but not lasting; it did not deprive him
of either appetite nor honor . . . . Gerron, becoming a corporal, had obtained
no idea of any kind of sorrow other than that coming from the blows of a
baton on the rump . . . . On this idea, he thought that the soul of an honest
man was no different than a soldier's breech. If Gerron caused trouble to the
spirit of a man of honor, he thought that this spirit, like his own, had only a
rump, and that any trouble he caused would pass likewise. He deceived
himself. The breech of the spirit of an honest man is different than the
breech of the spirit of a Gerron who rendered compatible the rank of a
military officer with the vile employments of a domestic and the stable-
master of some particular lord. Since Gerron deceived himself, we must
pardon him all his faults . . ." etc.

Casanova complained of the Faulkircher incident to the mother of Count
Waldstein, who wrote: "I pity you, Monsieur, for being obliged to live
among such people and in such evil company, but my son will not forget
that which he owes to himself and I am sure he will give you all the
satisfaction you wish." Also to his friend Zaguri, who wrote, the 16th
March: "I hope that the gout in your hand will not torment you any more. . .
. You have told me the story I asked about and which begins: 'Two months
have passed since an officer, who is at Vienna, insulted me!' I cannot
understand whether he who wrote you an insulting letter is at Vienna or
whether he is at Dux. When will the Count return? . . . You should await his
return because you would have, among other reasons to present to him, that
of not wishing to have recourse to other jurisdiction than his. . . You say
your letters have been intercepted? Someone has put your portrait in the

privy? The devil! It is a miracle that you have not killed someone.
Positively, I am curious to know the results and I hope that you make no
mistakes in this affair which appears to me very delicate."

In August 1792, or thereabouts, Da Ponte on his way to Dresden, visited
Casanova at Dux, in the hope of collecting an old debt, but gave up this
hope on realizing Casanova's limited resources. In the winter of 1792-3 Da
Ponte found himself in great distress in Holland. "Casanova was the only
man to whom I could apply," he writes in his Memoirs. "To better dispose
him, I thought to write him in verse, depicting my troubles and begging him
to send me some money on account of that which he still owed me. Far
from considering my request, he contented himself with replying, in vulgar
prose, by a laconic billet which I transcribe: 'When Cicero wrote to his
friends, he avoided telling them of his affairs.'"

In May 1793, Da Ponte wrote from London: "Count Waldstein has lived
a very obscure life in London, badly lodged, badly dressed, badly served,
always in cabarets, cafes, with porters, with rascals, with . . . we will leave
out the rest. He has the heart of an angel and an excellent character, but not
so good a head as ours."

Toward the end of 1792, Cssanova wrote a letter to Robespierre, which,
as he advises M. Opiz, the 13th January 1793, occupied one hundred and
twenty folio pages. This letter was not to be found at Dux and it may
possibly have been sent, or may have been destroyed by Casanova on the
advice of Abbe O'Kelly. Casanova's feelings were very bitter over the trial
of Louis XVI., and in his letters to M. Opiz he complained bitterly of the
Jacobins and predicted the ruin of France. Certainly, to Casanova, the
French Revolution represented the complete overthrow of many of his
cherished illusions.

On the 1st August 1793, Wilhelmina Rietz, Countess Lichtenau (called
the Pompadour of Frederic-William II., King of Prussia) wrote to the
librarian at Dux:

"Monsieur

"It seems impossible to know where Count Valstaine [Waldstein] is
staying, whether he is in Europe, Africa, America, or possibly the
Megamiques. If he is there, you are the only one who could insure his
receiving the enclosed letter.

"For my part, I have not yet had time to read their history, but the first
reading I do will assuredly be that.

"Mademoiselle Chappuis has the honor of recalling herself to your
memory, and I have that of being your very humble servant,

"Wilhelmina Rietz."

The allusions to a "history" and to the 'Megamiques' in this letter refer to
Casanova's romance, 'Icosameron'.

About this time, Count Waldstein returned to Dux after having been, at
Paris, according to Da Ponte, concerned in planning the flight of Louis
XVI., and in attempting to save the Princess Lamballe. On the 17th
August, Casanova replied to the above letter:

"Madame,

"I handed the Count your letter two minutes after having received it,
finding him easily. I told him that he should respond at once, for the post
was ready to go; but, as he begged to wait for the following ordinary, I did
not insist. The day before yesterday, he begged me to wait again, but he did

not find me so complaisant. I respond to you, Madame, for his carelessness
in replying to letters is extreme; he is so shameful that he is in despair when
he is obliged to it. Although he may not respond, be sure of seeing him at
your house at Berlin after the Leipzig Fair, with a hundred bad excuses
which you will laugh at and pretend to believe good ones . . . . This last
month, my wish to see Berlin again has become immeasurable, and I will
do my best to have Count Waldstein take me there in the month of October
or at least to permit me to go . . . . You have given me an idea of Berlin far
different than that the city left with me when I passed four months there
twenty-nine years ago . . . . If my 'Icosameron' interests you, I offer you its
Spirit. I wrote it here two years ago and I would not have published it if I
had not dared hope that the Theological Censor would permit it. At Berlin
no one raised the least difficulty . . . . If circumstances do not permit me to
pay you my respects at Berlin, I hope for the happiness of seeing you here
next year . . . ."

Sometime after this and following his quarrel with M. Opiz, Casanova
evidently passed through a period of depression, as indicated by a
manuscript at Dux, headed "Short reflection of a philosopher who finds
himself thinking of procuring his own death," and dated "the 13th
December 1793, the day dedicated to S. Lucie, remarkable in my too long
life."

"Life is a burden to me. What is the metaphysical being who prevents me
from slaying myself? It is Nature. What is the other being who enjoins me
to lighten the burdens of that life which brings me only feeble pleasures and
heavy pains? It is Reason. Nature is a coward which, demanding only
conservation, orders me to sacrifice all to its existence. Reason is a being
which gives me resemblance to God, which treads instinct under foot and
which teaches me to choose the best way after having well considered the

reasons. It demonstrates to me that I am a man in imposing silence on the
Nature which opposes that action which alone could remedy all my ills.

"Reason convinces me that the power I have of slaying myself is a
privilege given me by God, by which I perceive that I am superior to all
animals created in the world; for there is no animal who can slay itself nor
think of slaying itself, except the scorpion, which poisons itself, but only
when the fire which surrounds it convinces it that it cannot save itself from
being burned. This animal slays itself because it fears fire more than death.
Reason tells me imperiously that I have the right to slay myself, with the
divine oracle of Cen: 'Qui non potest vivere bene non vivat male.' These
eight words have such power that it is impossible that a man to whom life is
a burden could do other than slay himself on first hearing them."

Certainly, however, Casanova did not deceive himself with these
sophisms, and Nature, who for many years had unquestionably lavished her
gifts on him, had her way.

Over the end of the year, the two mathematicians, Casanova and Opiz, at
the request of Count Waldstein, made a scientific examination of the reform
of the calendar as decreed the 5th October 1793 by the National
Convention.

In January 1795, Casanova wrote to the Princess Lobkowitz to thank her
for her gift of a little dog. On the 16th the Princess wrote from Vienna:

"Monsieur,

"I am enchanted at the charming reception you accorded the dog which I
sent you when I learned of the death of your well-loved greyhound,
knowing that she would nowhere be better cared for than with you,

Monsieur. I hope with all my heart that she has all the qualities which may,
in some fashion, help you to forget the deceased . . . ."

In the autumn of 1795, Casanova left Dux. The Prince de Ligne writes in
his Memoirs: "God directed him to leave Dux. Scarcely believing in more
than his death, which he no longer doubted, he pretended that each thing he
had done was by the direction of God and this was his guide. God directed
him to ask me for letters of recommendation to the Duke of Weimar, who
was my good friend, to the Duchess of Gotha, who did not know me, and to
the Jews of Berlin. And he departed secretly, leaving for Count Waldstein a
letter at once tender, proud, honest and irritating. Waldstein laughed and
said he would return. Casanova waited in ante-chambers; no one would
place him either as governor, librarian or chamberlain. He said everywhere
that the Germans were thorough beasts. The excellent and very amiable
Duke of Weimer welcomed him wonderfully; but in an instant he became
jealous of Goethe and Wieland, who were under the Duke's protection. He
declaimed against them and against the literature of the country which he
did not, and could not, know. At Berlin, he declaimed against the ignorance,
the superstition and the knavery of the Hebrews to whom I had addressed
him, drawing meanwhile, for the money they claimed of him, bills of
exchange on the Count who laughed, paid, and embraced him when he
returned. Casanova laughed, wept, and told him that God had ordered him
to make this trip of six weeks, to leave without speaking of it, and to return
to his chamber at Dux. Enchanted at seeing us again, he agreeably related to
us all the misfortunes which had tried him and to which his susceptibility
gave the name of humiliations. 'I am proud,' he said, 'because I am nothing'.
. . . Eight days after his return, what new troubles! Everyone had been
served strawberries before him, and none remained for him."

The Prince de Ligne, although he was Casanova's sincere friend and
admirer, gives a rather somber picture of Casanova's life at Dux: "It must

not be imagined that he was satisfied to live quietly in the refuge provided
him through the kindness of Waldstein. That was not within his nature. Not
a day passed without trouble; something was certain to be wrong with the
coffee, the milk, the dish of macaroni, which he required each day. There
were always quarrels in the house. The cook had ruined his polenta; the
coachman had given him a bad driver to bring him to see me; the dogs had
barked all night; there had been more guests than usual and he had found it
necessary to eat at a side table. Some hunting-horn had tormented his ear
with its blasts; the priest had been trying to convert him; Count Waldstein
had not anticipated his morning greeting; the servant had delayed with his
wine; he had not been introduced to some distinguished personage who had
come to see the lance which had pierced the side of the great Wallenstein;
the Count had lent a book without telling him; a groom had not touched his
hat to him; his German speech had been misunderstood; he had become
angry and people had laughed at him."

Like Count Waldstein, however, the Prince de Ligne made the widest
allowances, understanding the chafing of Casanova's restless spirit.
"Casanova has a mind without an equal, from which each word is
extraordinary and each thought a book."

On the 16th December, he wrote Casanova: "One is never old with your
heart, your genius and your stomach."

Casanova's own comment on his trip away from Dux will be found in the
Memoirs. "Two years ago, I set out for Hamburg, but my good genius made
me return to Dux. What had I to do at Hamburg?"

On the 10th December, Casanova's brother Giovanni [Jean] died. He was
the Director of the Academy of Painting at Dresden. Apparently the two
brothers could not remain friends.

Giovanni left two daughters, Teresa and Augusta, and two sons, Carlo
and Lorenzo. While he was unable to remain friendly with his brother,
Casanova apparently wished to be of assistance to his nieces, who were not
in the best of circumstances, and he exchanged a number of letters with
Teresa after her father's death.

On the occasion of Teresa Casanova's visit to Vienna in 1792, Princess
Clari, oldest sister of the Prince de Ligne, wrote of her: "She is charming in
every way, pretty as love, always amiable; she has had great success. Prince
Kaunitz loves her to the point of madness."

In a letter of the 25th April 1796, Teresa assured her "very amiable and
very dear uncle" that the cautions, which occupied three-fourths of his
letter, were unnecessary; and compared him with his brother Francois, to
the injury of the latter. On the 5th May, Teresa wrote:

"Before thanking you for your charming letter, my very kind uncle, I
should announce the issue of our pension of one hundred and sixty crowns a
year, which is to say, eighty crowns apiece; I am well satisfied for I did not
hope to receive so much." In the same letter, Teresa spoke of seeing much
of a "charming man," Don Antonio, who was no other than the rascally
adventurer Don Antonio della Croce with whom Casanova had been
acquainted since 1753, who assisted Casanova in losing a thousand sequins
at Milan in 1763; who in 1767, at Spa, following financial reverses,
abandoned his pregnant mistress to the charge of Casanova; and who in
August 1795, wrote to Casanova: "Your letter gave me great pleasure as the
sweet souvenir of our old friendship, unique and faithful over a period of
fifty years."

It is probable that, at this time, Casanova visited Dresden and Berlin also.
In his letter "To Leonard Snetlage," he writes: "'That which proves that

revolution should arrive,' a profound thinker said to me in Berlin, last year,
'is that it has arrived.'"

On the 1st March, 1798, Carlo Angiolini, the son of Maria Maddalena,
Casanova's sister, wrote to Casanova: "This evening, Teresa will marry M.
le Chambellan de Veisnicht [Von Wessenig] whom you know well." This
desirable marriage received the approval of Francesco also. Teresa, as the
Baroness Wessenig, occupied a prominent social position at Dresden. She
died in 1842.

Between the 13th February and the 6th December 1796, Casanova
engaged in a correspondence with Mlle. Henriette de Schuckmann who was
visiting at Bayreuth. This Henriette (unfortunately not the Henriette of the
Memoirs whose "forty letters" to Casanova apparently have not been
located), had visited the library at Dux in the summer of 1786. "I was with
the Chamberlain Freiberg, and I was greatly moved, as much by your
conversation as by your kindness which provided me with a beautiful
edition of Metastasio, elegantly bound in red morocco." Finding herself at
Bayreuth in an enforced idleness and wishing a stimulant, wishing also to
borrow some books, she wrote Casanova, under the auspices of Count
Koenig, a mutual friend, the 13th February 1796, recalling herself to his
memory. Casanova responded to her overtures and five of her letters were
preserved at Dux. On the 28th May Henriette wrote:

"But certainly, my good friend, your letters have given me the greatest
pleasure, and it is with a rising satisfaction that I pore over all you say to
me. I love, I esteem, I cherish, your frankness . . . . I understand you
perfectly and I love to distraction the lively and energetic manner with
which you express yourself."

On the 30th September, she wrote: "You will read to-day, if you please, a
weary letter; for your silence, Monsieur, has given me humors. A promise is

a debt, and in your last letter you promised to write me at least a dozen
pages. I have every right to call you a bad debtor; I could summon you
before a court of justice; but all these acts of vengeance would not repair
the loss which I have endured through my hope and my fruitless waiting . . .
. It is your punishment to read this trivial page; but although my head is
empty, my heart is not so, and it holds for you a very living friendship."

In March 1797, this Henriette went to Lausanne and in May from there to
her father's home at Mecklenburg.

IV
CORRESPONDENCE WITH JEAN-FERDINAND OPIZ

On the 27th July 1792, Casanova wrote M. Opiz that he had finished the
twelfth volume of his Memoirs, with his age at forty-seven years 1772.
"Our late friend, the worthy Count Max Josef Lamberg," he added, "could
not bear the idea of my burning my Memoirs, and expecting to survive me,
had persuaded me to send him the first four volumes. But now there is no
longer any questions that his good soul has left his organs. Three weeks ago
I wept for his death, all the more so as he would still be living if he had
listened to me. I am, perhaps, the only one who knows the truth. He who
slew him was the surgeon Feuchter at Cremsir, who applied thirty-six
mercurial plasters on a gland in his left groin which was swollen but not by
the pox, as I am sure by the description he gave me of the cause of the
swelling. The mercury mounted to his esophagus and, being able to
swallow neither solids nor fluids, he died the 23rd June of positive famine .
. . . The interest of the bungling surgeon is to say that he died of the pox.
This is not true, I beg, you to give the lie to anyone you hear saying it. I
have before my eyes four hundred and sixty of his letters over which I weep

and which I will burn. I have asked Count Leopold to burn mine, which he
had saved, and I hope that he will please me by doing it. I have survived all
my true friends. 'Tempus abire mihi est' Horace says to me.

"Returning to my Memoirs . . . I am a detestable man; but I do not care
about having it known, and I do not aspire to the honor of the detestation of
posterity. My work is full of excellent moral instructions. But to what good,
if the charming descriptions of my offences excite the readers more to
action than to repentance? Furthermore, knowing readers would divine the
names of all the women and of the men which I have masked, whose
transgressions are unknown to the world, my indiscretion would injure
them, they would cry out against my perfidy, even though every word of my
history were true . . . . Tell me yourself whether or not I should burn my
work? I am curious to have your advice."

On the 6th May 1793, Casanova wrote Opiz: "The letter of
recommendation you ask of me to the professor my brother for your
younger son, honors me; and there is no doubt that, having for you all the
estimation your qualities merit, I should send it to you immediately. But this
cannot be. And here is the reason. My brother is my enemy; he has given
me sure indications of it and it appears that his hate will not cease until I no
longer exist. I hope that he may long survive me and be happy. This desire
is my only apology."

"The epigraph of the little work which I would give to the public,"
Casanova wrote the 23rd August 1793, "is 'In pondere et mensura'. It is
concerned with gravity and measure. I would demonstrate not only that the
course of the stars is irregular but also that it is susceptible only to
approximate measures and that consequently we must join physical and
moral calculations in establishing celestial movements. For I prove that all
fixed axes must have a necessarily irregular movement of oscillation, from

which comes a variation in all the necessary curves of the planets which
compose their eccentricities and their orbits. I demonstrate that light has
neither body nor spirit; I demonstrate that it comes in an instant from its
respective star; I demonstrate the impossibility of many parallaxes and the
uselessness of many others. I criticize not only Tiko-Brahi, but also Kepler
and Newton . . . .

"I wish to send you my manuscript and give you the trouble of publishing
it with my name at Prague or elsewhere . . . . I will sell it to the printer or to
yourself for fifty florins and twenty-five copies on fine paper when it is
printed."

But Opiz replied:

"As the father of a family, I do not feel myself authorized to dispose of
my revenues on the impulse of my fancy or as my heart suggests…. and no
offer of yours could make me a book-seller."

This shows plainly enough that Opiz, for all his interest in Casanova, had
not the qualities of true friendship.

On the 6th September 1793, Casanova wrote:

"I will have my Reveries printed at Dresden, and I will be pleased to send
you a copy. I laughed a little at your fear that I would take offense because
you did not want my manuscript by sending me the ridiculous sum I named
to you. This refusal, my dear friend, did not offend me. On the contrary it
was useful as an aid in knowing character. Add to this that in making the
offer I thought to make you a gift. Fear nothing from the event. Your system
of economy will never interfere with either my proceedings or my
doctrines; and I am in no need of begging you, for I think that your action
followed only your inclination and consequently your greatest pleasure."

On the insistence of Opiz, Casanova continued his correspondence, but
he passed over nothing more, neither in exact quotations from Latin
authors, nor solecisms, nor lame reasonings. He even reproached him for
his poor writing and did not cease joking at the philanthropic and amiable
sentiments Opiz loved to parade while at the same time keeping his purse-
strings tight. A number of quarreling letters followed, after which the
correspondence came to an end. One of Casanova's last letters, that of the
2nd February 1794, concludes: "One day M. de Bragadin said to me:
'Jacques, be careful never to convince a quibbler, for he will become your
enemy.' After this wise advice I avoided syllogism, which tended toward
conviction. But in spite of this you have become my enemy. . . ."

Among the Casanova manuscripts at Dux was one giving his final
comment on his relations with Opiz. Accusing Opiz of bringing about a
quarrel, Casanova nevertheless admits that he himself may not be
blameless, but lays this to his carelessness. "I have a bad habit," he writes,
"of not reading over my letters. If, in re-reading those I wrote to M. Opiz, I
had found them bitter, I would have burned them." Probably Casanova
struck the root of the matter in his remark, "Perfect accord is the first charm
of a reciprocal friendship." The two men were primarily of so different a
temperament, that they apparently could not long agree even on subjects on
which they were most in accord.

The complete correspondence is of very considerable interest.

V
PUBLICATIONS

In 1786, Casanova published 'Le soliloque d'un penseur', in which he
speaks of Saint-Germain and of Cagliostro. On the 23rd December 1792,
Zaguri wrote Casanova that Cagliostro was in prison at San Leo. "Twenty
years ago, I told Cagliostro not to set his foot in Rome, and if he had
followed this advice he would not have died miserably in a Roman prison."

In January 1788, appeared 'Icosameron' a romance in five volumes,
dedicated to Count Waldstein, which he describes as "translated from the
English." This fanciful romance, which included philosophic and
theological discussions, was the original work of Casanova and not a
translation. It was criticized in 1789 by a literary journal at Jena. Preserved
at Dux were several manuscripts with variants of 'Icosameron' and also an
unpublished reply to the criticism.

In 1788 Casanova published the history of his famous flight from "The
Leads". An article on this book appeared in the German 'Litteratur-Zeitung',
29th June 1789: "As soon as the history was published and while it was
exciting much interest among us and among our neighbors, it was seen that
other attempts at flight from prisons would make their appearance. The
subject in itself is captivating; all prisoners awake our compassion,
particularly when they are enclosed in a severe prison and are possibly
innocent . . . . The history with which we are concerned has all the
appearances of truth; many Venetians have testified to it, and the principal
character, M. Casanova, brother of the celebrated painter, actually lives at
Dux in Bohemia where the Count Waldstein has established him as
guardian of his important library."

In July 1789 there was discovered, among the papers of the Bastille, the
letter which Casanova wrote from Augsburg in May 1767 to Prince Charles
of Courlande on the subject of fabricating gold. Carrel published this letter
at once in the third volume of his 'Memoirs authentiques et historiques sur

la Bastille'. Casanova kept a copy of this letter and includes it in the
Memoirs.

In October 1789, Casanova wrote M. Opiz that he was writing to a
professor of mathematics [M. Lagrange] at Paris, a long letter in Italian, on
the duplication of the cube, which he wished to publish. In August 1790,
Casanova published his 'Solution du Probleme Deliaque demontree and
Deux corollaires a la duplication de hexadre'. On the subject of his
pretended solution of this problem in speculative mathematics, Casanova
engaged with M. Opiz in a heated technical discussion between the 16th
September and 1st November 1790. Casanova sought vainly to convince
Opiz of the correctness of his solution. Finally, M. Opiz, tired of the
polemics, announced that he was leaving on a six-weeks tour of inspection
and that he would not be able to occupy himself with the duplication of the
cube for some time to come. On the 1st November, Casanova wished him a
pleasant journey and advised him to guard against the cold because "health
is the soul of life."

In 1797, appeared the last book published during Casanova's lifetime, a
small work entitled: 'A Leonard Snetlage, docteur en droit de l'Universite de
Goettingue, Jacques Casanova, docteur en droit de l'Universite de Padoue'.
This was a careful criticism of the neologisms introduced into French by the
Revolution. In reference to Casanova's title of "Doctor," researches by M.
Favoro at the University of Padua had failed to establish this claim,
although, in the Memoirs Casanova had written:

"I remained at Padua long enough to prepare myself for the Doctor's
degree, which I intended to take the following year." With this devil of a
man, it is always prudent to look twice before peremptorily questioning the
truth of his statement. And in fact, the record of Casanova's matriculation
was discovered by Signor Bruno Brunelli.

VI

SUMMARY of MY LIFE

The 2nd November, 1797, Cecilia Roggendorff wrote to Casanova: "By
the way, how do you call yourself, by your baptismal name? On what day
and in what year were you born? You may laugh, if you wish, at my
questions, but I command you to satisfy me . . ." To this request, Casanova
responded with:

"Summary of My Life:—my mother brought me into the world at Venice
on the 2nd April, Easter day of the year 1725. She had, the night before, a
strong desire for crawfish. I am very fond of them.

"At baptism, I was named Jacques-Jerome. I was an idiot until I was
eight-and-a-half years old. After having had a hemorrhage for three months,
I was taken to Padua, where, cured of my imbecility, I applied myself to
study and, at the age of sixteen years I was made a doctor and given the
habit of a priest so that I might go seek my fortune at Rome.

"At Rome, the daughter of my French instructor was the cause of my
being dismissed by my patron, Cardinal Aquaviva.

"At the age of eighteen years, I entered the military service of my
country, and I went to Constantinople. Two years afterward, having returned
to Venice, I left the profession of honor and, taking the bit in my teeth,
embraced the wretched profession of a violinist. I horrified my friends, but
this did not last for very long.

"At the age of twenty-one years, one of the highest nobles of Venice
adopted me as his son, and, having become rich, I went to see Italy, France,
Germany and Vienna where I knew Count Roggendorff. I returned to

Venice, where, two years later, the State Inquisitors of Venice, for just and
wise reasons, imprisoned me under The Leads.

"This was the state prison, from which no one had ever escaped, but, with
the aid of God, I took flight at the end of fifteen months and went to Paris.
In two years, my affairs prospered so well that I became worth a million,
but, all the same, I went bankrupt. I made money in Holland; suffered
misfortune in Stuttgart; was received with honors in Switzerland; visited M.
de Voltaire; adventured in Genoa, Marseilles, Florence and in Rome where
the Pope Rezzonico, a Venetian, made me a Chevalier of Saint-Jean-Latran
and an apostolic protonotary. This was in the year 1760.

"In the same year I found good fortune at Naples; at Florence I carried
off a girl; and, the following year, I was to attend the Congress at Augsburg,
charged with a commission from the King of Portugal. The Congress did
not meet there and, after the publication of peace, I passed on into England,
which great misfortunes caused me to leave in the following year, 1764. I
avoided the gibbet which, however, should not have dishonored me as I
should only have been hung. In the same year I searched in vain for fortune
at Berlin and at Petersburg, but I found it at Warsaw in the following year.
Nine months afterwards, I lost it through being embroiled in a pistol duel
with General Branicki; I pierced his abdomen but in eight months he was
well again and I was very much pleased. He was a brave man. Obliged to
leave Poland, I returned to Paris in 1767, but a 'lettre de cachet' obliged me
to leave and I went to Spain where I met with great misfortunes. I
committed the crime of making nocturnal visits to the mistress of the 'vice-
roi', who was a great scoundrel.

"At the frontiers of Spain, I escaped from assassins only to suffer, at Aix,
in Provence, an illness which took me to the edge of the grave, after spitting
blood for eighteen months.

"In the year 1769, I published my Defense of the Government of Venice,
in three large volumes, written against Amelot de la Houssaie.

"In the following year the English Minister at the Court of Turin sent me,
well recommended, to Leghorn. I wished to go to Constantinople with the
Russian fleet, but as Admiral Orlof, would not meet my conditions, I
retraced my steps and went to Rome under the pontificate of Ganganelli.

"A happy love affair made me leave Rome and go to Naples and, three
months later, an unhappy love made me return to Rome. I had measured
swords for the third time with Count Medini who died four years ago at
London, in prison for his debts.

"Having considerable money, I went to Florence, where, during the
Christmas Festival, the Archduke Leopold, the Emperor who died four or
five years ago, ordered me to leave his dominions within three days. I had a
mistress who, by my advice, became Marquise de * * * at Bologna.

"Weary of running about Europe, I determined to solicit mercy from the
Venetian State Inquisitors. For this purpose, I established myself at
Trieste where, two years later, I obtained it. This was the 14th
September 1774. My return to Venice after nineteen years was the most
pleasant moment of my life.

"In 1782, I became embroiled with the entire body of the Venetian
nobility. At the beginning of 1783, I voluntarily left the ungrateful country
and went to Vienna. Six months later I went to Paris with the intention of
establishing myself there, but my brother, who had lived there for twenty-
six years, made me forget my interests in favor of his. I rescued him from
the hands of his wife and took him to Vienna where Prince Kaunitz engaged
him to establish himself. He is still there, older than I am by two years.

"I placed myself in the service of M. Foscarini, Venetian Ambassador, to
write dispatches. Two years later, he died in my arms, killed by the gout
which mounted into his chest. I then set out for Berlin in the hope of
securing a position with the Academy, but, half way there, Count Waldstein
stopped me at Teplitz and led me to Dux where I still am and where,
according to all appearances, I shall die.

"This is the only summary of my life that I have written, and I permit any
use of it which may be desired.

"'Non erubesco evangelium'.

"This 17th November 1797.

"Jacques Casanova."

In reference to Casanova's ironic remark about his escape from England,
see his conversation, on the subject of "dishonor," with Sir Augustus
Hervey at London in 1763, which is given in the Memoirs.

VII
LAST DAYS AT DUX

Scattered through the Memoirs are many of Casanova's thoughts about
his old age. Some were possibly incorporated in the original text, others
possibly added when he revised the text in 1797. These vary from
resignation to bitterness, doubtless depending on Casanova's state of mind
at the moment he wrote them:

"Now that I am seventy-two years old, I believe myself no longer
susceptible of such follies. But alas! that is the very thing which causes me
to be miserable."

"I hate old age which offers only what I already know, unless I should
take up a gazette."

"Age has calmed my passions by rendering them powerless, but my heart
has not grown old and my memory has kept all the freshness of youth."

"No, I have not forgotten her [Henriette]; for even now, when my head is
covered with white hair, the recollection of her is still a source of happiness
for my heart."

"A scene which, even now, excites my mirth."

"Age, that cruel and unavoidable disease, compels me to be in good
health, in spite of myself."

"Now that I am but the shadow of the once brilliant Casanova, I love to
chatter."

"Now that age has whitened my hair and deadened the ardor of my
senses, my imagination does not take such a high flight and I think
differently."

"What embitters my old age is that, having a heart as warm as ever, I
have no longer the strength necessary to secure a single day as blissful as
those which I owed to this charming girl."

"When I recall these events, I grow young again and feel once more the
delights of youth, despite the long years which separate me from that happy
time."

"Now that I am getting into my dotage, I look on the dark side of
everything. I am invited to a wedding and see naught but gloom; and,
witnessing the coronation of Leopold II, at Prague, I say to myself, 'Nolo
coronari'. Cursed old age, thou art only worthy of dwelling in hell."

"The longer I live, the more interest I take in my papers. They are the
treasure which attaches me to life and makes death more hateful still."

And so on, through the Memoirs, Casanova supplies his own picture,
knowing very well that the end, even of his cherished memories, is not far
distant.

In 1797, Casanova relates an amusing, but irritating incident, which
resulted in the loss of the first three chapters of the second volume of the
Memoirs through the carelessness of a servant girl at Dux who took the
papers "old, written upon, covered with scribbling and erasures," for "her
own purposes," thus necessitating a re-writing, "which I must now abridge,"
of these chapters. Thirty years before, Casanova would doubtless have
made love to the girl and all would have been forgiven. But, alas for the
"hateful old age" permitting no relief except irritation and impotent anger.

On the 1st August, 1797, Cecilia Roggendorff, the daughter of the Count
Roggendorff [printed Roquendorf] whom Casanova had met at Vienna in
1753, wrote: "You tell me in one of your letters that, at your death, you will
leave me, by your will, your Memoirs which occupy twelve volumes."

At this time, Casanova was revising, or had completed his revision of, the
twelve volumes. In July 1792, as mentioned above, Casanova wrote Opiz
that he had arrived at the twelfth volume. In the Memoirs themselves we
read, ". . . the various adventures which, at the age of seventy-two years,
impel me to write these Memoirs . . .," written probably during a revision in
1797.

At the beginning of one of the two chapters of the last volume, which
were missing until discovered by Arthur Symons at Dux in 1899, we read:
"When I left Venice in the year 1783, God ought to have sent me to Rome,
or to Naples, or to Sicily, or to Parma, where my old age, according to all
appearances, might have been happy. My genius, who is always right, led
me to Paris, so that I might see my brother Francois, who had run into debt
and who was just then going to the Temple. I do not care whether or not he
owes me his regeneration, but I am glad to have effected it. If he had been
grateful to me, I should have felt myself paid; it seems to me much better
that he should carry the burden of his debt on his shoulders, which from
time to time he ought to find heavy. He does not deserve a worse
punishment. To-day, in the seventy-third year of my life, my only desire is
to live in peace and to be far from any person who might imagine that he
has rights over my moral liberty, for it is impossible that any kind of
tyranny should not coincide with this imagination."

Early in February, 1798, Casanova was taken sick with a very grave
bladder trouble of which he died after suffering for three-and-a-half months.
On the 16th February Zaguri wrote: "I note with the greatest sorrow the
blow which has afflicted you." On the 31st March, after having consulted
with a Prussian doctor, Zaguri sent a box of medicines and he wrote
frequently until the end.

On the 20th April Elisa von der Recke, whom Casanova had met, some
years before, at the chateau of the Prince de Ligne at Teplitz, having
returned to Teplitz, wrote: "Your letter, my friend, has deeply affected me.
Although myself ill, the first fair day which permits me to go out will find
me at your side." On the 27th, Elisa, still bedridden, wrote that the Count de
Montboisier and his wife were looking forward to visiting Casanova. On
the 6th May she wrote, regretting that she was unable to send some
crawfish soup, but that the rivers were too high for the peasants to secure

the crawfish. "The Montboisier family, Milady Clark, my children and
myself have all made vows for your recovery." On the 8th, she sent bouillon
and madeira.

On the 4th June, 1798, Casanova died. His nephew, Carlo Angiolini was
with him at the time. He was buried in the churchyard of Santa Barbara at
Dux. The exact location of his grave is uncertain, but a tablet, placed
against the outside wall of the church reads:

JAKOB
CASANOVA
Venedig 1725 Dux 1798

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS
OF JACQUES CASANOVA DE SEINGALT, 1725-1798. VOLUME 30:
OLD AGE AND DEATH ***

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