Volume VI Part 105 (1/2)

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 anony that, on the 25th of this month, an earthquake, round This letter has caused a panic here

Many patricians have left the capital and others will follow their example The author of the anonymous letteris a certain Casanova, rote from Vienna and found means to slip it into the Ambassador's own ain 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 fro 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 ue had played on hied 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, fore 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 fro was dear at Spa; his roo else in proportion

On the 6th Septeood friends, the Abbe Eusebio della Lena, telling hilish wo Latin wished to subed 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 froe 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 illuminatedI 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 tie with him by Casanova for three sequins

On the 6th Septereat pleasure, I reply to the three dear letters which you wrote ust, from which I learned that your departure had been delayed for some days to wait for someone as 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 ust, 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 iine in what need I find myself, I and all e to ask it of anyone My old thread with the little cross which you know I love Necessity made ust from Spa with another letter for S E the Procurator Morosini You directed ust, I did not fail to go there exactly at three o'clock At once on my arrival, I spoke to a servant who ad to send you an unpleasant e 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 e, 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 doine 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 ive me even a sou That is all he said to uri sent to me to ask if I knehere 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 er pleasing to the wo 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 knohether he would prolong his visit nor where he o and search elsewhere On the 23rd, he sent one hundred and fifty lires; ”a true blessing,” to the poor girl as always short of ht days at Fontainebleau, where heand lovely O'Morphi” who indirectly owed to him her position, in 1752, as the ed him to present my compliments to his mother”

He also met, in the same place, his own son by Mme Dubois, his forood M Lebel ”We shall hear of the young gentleman in twenty-one years at Fontainebleau”

”When I paidmy days in that capital, I reckoned on the friendshi+p of M d'Aleht afterto 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 hiive various directions to an air balloon This was the response: 'The matter is still in its infancy, so we reat philosopher could ignore the fact that it would be ioverned 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 neife drove him away from Paris”