The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt by Giacomo Casanova (best ereader for students .TXT) 📖

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