Title: Venetian Years: Childhood And Adolescence

       The Memoirs Of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt 1725-1798

Author: Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

Release Date: December 10, 2004 [EBook #2951]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENETIAN YEARS: CHILDHOOD ***

Produced by David Widger

THE COMPLETE MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TO

WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.

[Etext Editors Note: These memoires were not written for children

and may outrage readers offended by Chaucer, La Fontaine, Rabelais

and The Old Testament.  D.W.]

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

VENETIAN YEARS, Volume 1a--CHILDHOOD

CONTENTS:

     CASANOVA AT DUX

     TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

     AUTHOR'S PREFACE

     CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE

CASANOVA AT DUX

An Unpublished Chapter of History, By Arthur Symons

I

The Memoirs of Casanova, though they have enjoyed the popularity of a bad

reputation, have never had justice done to them by serious students of

literature, of life, and of history. One English writer, indeed, Mr.

Havelock Ellis, has realised that 'there are few more delightful books in

the world,' and he has analysed them in an essay on Casanova, published

in Affirmations, with extreme care and remarkable subtlety. But this

essay stands alone, at all events in English, as an attempt to take

Casanova seriously, to show him in his relation to his time, and in his

relation to human problems. And yet these Memoirs are perhaps the most

valuable document which we possess on the society of the eighteenth

century; they are the history of a unique life, a unique personality, one

of the greatest of autobiographies; as a record of adventures, they are

more entertaining than Gil Blas, or Monte Cristo, or any of the imaginary

travels, and escapes, and masquerades in life, which have been written in

imitation of them. They tell the story of a man who loved life

passionately for its own sake: one to whom woman was, indeed, the most

important thing in the world, but to whom nothing in the world was

indifferent. The bust which gives us the most lively notion of him shows

us a great, vivid, intellectual face, full of fiery energy and calm

resource, the face of a thinker and a fighter in one. A scholar, an

adventurer, perhaps a Cabalist, a busy stirrer in politics, a gamester,

one 'born for the fairer sex,' as he tells us, and born also to be a

vagabond; this man, who is remembered now for his written account of his

own life, was that rarest kind of autobiographer, one who did not live to

write, but wrote because he had lived, and when he could live no longer.

And his Memoirs take one all over Europe, giving sidelights, all the more

valuable in being almost accidental, upon many of the affairs and people

most interesting to us during two-thirds of the eighteenth century.

Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice, of Spanish and Italian parentage, on

April 2, 1725; he died at the Chateau of Dux, in Bohemia, on June 4,

1798. In that lifetime of seventy-three years he travelled, as his

Memoirs show us, in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, England,

Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Poland, Spain, Holland, Turkey; he met

Voltaire at Ferney, Rousseau at Montmorency, Fontenelle, d'Alembert and

Crebillon at Paris, George III. in London, Louis XV. at Fontainebleau,

Catherine the Great at St. Petersburg, Benedict XII. at Rome, Joseph II.

at Vienna, Frederick the Great at Sans-Souci. Imprisoned by the

Inquisitors of State in the Piombi at Venice, he made, in 1755, the most

famous escape in history. His Memoirs, as we have them, break off

abruptly at the moment when he is expecting a safe conduct, and the

permission to return to Venice after twenty years' wanderings. He did

return, as we know from documents in the Venetian archives; he returned

as secret agent of the Inquisitors, and remained in their service from

1774 until 1782. At the end of 1782 he left Venice; and next year we find

him in Paris, where, in 1784, he met Count Waldstein at the Venetian

Ambassador's, and was invited by him to become his librarian at Dux. He

accepted, and for the fourteen remaining years of his life lived at Dux,

where he wrote his Memoirs.

Casanova died in 1798, but nothing was heard of the Memoirs (which the

Prince de Ligne, in his own Memoirs, tells us that Casanova had read to

him, and in which he found 'du dyamatique, de la rapidite, du comique, de

la philosophie, des choses neuves, sublimes, inimitables meme') until the

year 1820, when a certain Carlo Angiolini brought to the publishing house

of Brockhaus, in Leipzig, a manuscript entitled Histoire de ma vie jusqu

a l'an 1797, in the handwriting of Casanova. This manuscript, which I

have examined at Leipzig, is written on foolscap paper, rather rough and

yellow; it is written on both sides of the page, and in sheets or quires;

here and there the paging shows that some pages have been omitted, and in

their place are smaller sheets of thinner and whiter paper, all in

Casanova's handsome, unmistakable handwriting. The manuscript is done up

in twelve bundles, corresponding with the twelve volumes of the original

edition; and only in one place is there a gap. The fourth and fifth

chapters of the twelfth volume are missing, as the editor of the original

edition points out, adding: 'It is not probable that these two chapters

have been withdrawn from the manuscript of Casanova by a strange hand;

everything leads us to believe that the author himself suppressed them,

in the intention, no doubt, of re-writing them, but without having found

time to do so.' The manuscript ends abruptly with the year 1774, and not

with the year 1797, as the title would lead us to suppose.

This manuscript, in its original state, has never been printed. Herr

Brockhaus, on obtaining possession of the manuscript, had it translated

into German by Wilhelm Schutz, but with many omissions and alterations,

and published this translation, volume by volume, from 1822 to 1828,

under the title, 'Aus den Memoiren des Venetianers Jacob Casanova de

Seingalt.' While the German edition was in course of publication, Herr

Brockhaus employed a certain Jean Laforgue, a professor of the French

language at Dresden, to revise the original manuscript, correcting

Casanova's vigorous, but at times incorrect, and often somewhat Italian,

French according to his own notions of elegant writing, suppressing

passages which seemed too free-spoken from the point of view of morals

and of politics, and altering the names of some of the persons referred

to, or replacing those names by initials. This revised text was published

in twelve volumes, the first two in 1826, the third and fourth in 1828,

the fifth to the eighth in 1832, and the ninth to the twelfth in 1837;

the first four bearing the imprint of Brockhaus at Leipzig and Ponthieu

et Cie at Paris; the next four the imprint of Heideloff et Campe at

Paris; and the last four nothing but 'A Bruxelles.' The volumes are all

uniform, and were all really printed for the firm of Brockhaus. This,

however far from representing the real text, is the only authoritative

edition, and my references throughout this article will always be to this

edition.

In turning over the manuscript at Leipzig, I read some of the suppressed

passages, and regretted their suppression; but Herr Brockhaus, the

present head of the firm, assured me that they are not really very

considerable in number. The damage, however, to the vivacity of the whole

narrative, by the persistent alterations of M. Laforgue, is incalculable.

I compared many passages, and found scarcely three consecutive sentences

untouched. Herr Brockhaus (whose courtesy I cannot sufficiently

acknowledge) was kind enough to have a passage copied out for me, which I

afterwards read over, and checked word by word. In this passage Casanova

says, for instance: 'Elle venoit presque tous les jours lui faire une

belle visite.' This is altered into: 'Cependant chaque jour Therese

venait lui faire une visite.' Casanova says that some one 'avoit, comme

de raison, forme le projet d'allier Dieu avec le diable.' This is made to

read: 'Qui, comme de raison, avait saintement forme le projet d'allier

les interets du ciel aux oeuvres de ce monde.' Casanova tells us that

Therese would not commit a mortal sin 'pour devenir reine du monde;' pour

une couronne,' corrects the indefatigable Laforgue. 'Il ne savoit que lui

dire' becomes 'Dans cet etat de perplexite;' and so forth. It must,

therefore, be realized that the Memoirs, as we have them, are only a kind

of pale tracing of the vivid colours of the original.

When Casanova's Memoirs were first published, doubts were expressed as to

their authenticity, first by Ugo Foscolo (in the Westminster Review,

1827), then by Querard, supposed to be an authority in regard to

anonymous and pseudonymous writings, finally by Paul Lacroix, 'le

bibliophile Jacob', who suggested, or rather expressed his 'certainty,'

that the real author of the Memoirs was Stendhal, whose 'mind, character,

ideas and style' he seemed to recognise on every page. This theory, as

foolish and as unsupported as the Baconian theory of Shakespeare, has

been carelessly accepted, or at all events accepted as possible, by many

good scholars who have never taken the trouble to look into the matter

for themselves. It was finally disproved by a series of articles of

Armand Baschet, entitled 'Preuves curieuses de l'authenticite des

Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt,' in 'Le Livre,' January,

February, April and May, 1881; and these proofs were further corroborated

by two articles of Alessandro d'Ancona, entitled 'Un Avventuriere del

Secolo XVIII., in the 'Nuovo Antologia,' February 1 and August 1, 1882.

Baschet had never himself seen the manuscript of the Memoirs, but he had

learnt all the facts about it from Messrs. Brockhaus, and he had himself

examined the numerous papers relating to Casanova in the Venetian

archives. A similar examination was made at the Frari at about the same

time by the Abbe Fulin; and I myself, in 1894, not knowing at the time

that the discovery had been already made, made it over again for myself.

There the arrest of Casanova, his imprisonment in the Piombi, the exact

date of his escape, the name of the monk who accompanied him, are all

authenticated by documents contained in the 'riferte' of the Inquisition

of State; there are the bills for the repairs of the roof and walls of

the cell from which he escaped; there are the reports of the spies on

whose information he was arrested, for his too dangerous free-spokenness

in matters of religion and morality. The same archives contain

forty-eight letters of Casanova to the Inquisitors of State, dating from

1763 to 1782, among the Riferte dei Confidenti, or reports of secret

agents; the earliest asking permission to return to Venice, the rest

giving information in regard to the immoralities of the city, after his

return there; all in the same handwriting as the Memoirs. Further proof

could scarcely be needed, but Baschet has done more than prove the

authenticity, he has proved the extraordinary veracity, of the Memoirs.

F. W. Barthold, in 'Die Geschichtlichen Personlichkeiten in J. Casanova's

Memoiren,' 2 vols., 1846, had already examined about a hundred of

Casanova's allusions to well known people, showing the perfect exactitude

of all but six or seven, and out of these six or seven inexactitudes

ascribing only a single one to the author's intention. Baschet and

d'Ancona both carry on what Barthold had begun; other investigators, in

France, Italy and Germany, have followed them; and two things are now

certain, first, that Casanova himself wrote the Memoirs published under

his name, though not textually in the precise form in which we have them;

and, second, that as their veracity becomes more and more evident as they

are confronted with more and more independent witnesses, it is only fair

to suppose that they are equally truthful where the facts are such as

could only have been known to Casanova himself.

II

For more than two-thirds of a century it has been known that Casanova

spent the last fourteen years of his life at Dux, that he wrote his

Memoirs there, and that he died there. During all this time people have

been discussing the authenticity and the truthfulness of the Memoirs,

they have been searching for information about Casanova in various

directions, and yet hardly any one has ever taken the trouble, or

obtained the permission, to make a careful examination in precisely the

one place where information was most likely to be found. The very

existence of the manuscripts at Dux was known only to a few, and to most

of these only on hearsay; and thus the singular good fortune was reserved

for me, on my visit to Count Waldstein in September 1899, to be the first

to discover the most interesting things contained in these manuscripts.

M. Octave Uzanne, though he had not himself visited Dux, had indeed

procured copies of some of the manuscripts, a few of which were published

by him in Le Livre, in 1887 and 1889. But with the death of Le Livre in

1889 the 'Casanova inedit' came to an end, and has never, so far as I

know, been continued elsewhere. Beyond the publication of these

fragments, nothing has been done with the manuscripts at Dux, nor has an

account of them ever been given by any one who has been allowed to

examine them.

For five years, ever since I had discovered the documents in the Venetian

archives, I had wanted to go to Dux; and in 1899, when I was staying with

Count Lutzow at Zampach, in Bohemia, I found the way kindly opened for

me. Count Waldstein, the present head of the family, with extreme

courtesy, put all his manuscripts at my disposal, and invited me to stay

with him. Unluckily, he was called away on the morning of the day that I

reached Dux. He had left everything ready for me, and I was shown over

the castle by a friend of his, Dr. Kittel, whose courtesy I should like

also to acknowledge. After a hurried visit to the castle we started on

the long drive to Oberleutensdorf, a smaller Schloss near Komotau, where

the Waldstein family was then staying. The air was sharp and bracing; the

two Russian horses flew like the wind; I was whirled along in an

unfamiliar darkness, through a strange country, black with coal mines,

through dark pine woods, where a wild peasantry dwelt in little mining

towns. Here and there, a few men and women passed us on the road, in

their Sunday finery; then a long space of silence, and we were in the

open country, galloping between broad fields; and always in a haze of

lovely hills, which I saw more distinctly as we drove back next morning.

The return to Dux was like a triumphal entry, as we dashed through the

market-place filled with people come for the Monday market, pots and pans

and vegetables strewn in heaps all over the ground, on the rough paving

stones, up to the great gateway of the castle, leaving but just room for

us to drive through their midst. 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, along 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 25,000 volumes, some of them of

considerable value; one of the most famous books in Bohemian literature,

Skala's History of the Church, exists in manuscript at Dux, and it is

from this manuscript that the two published volumes of it were printed.

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.

After I had been all over the castle, so long Casanova's home, I was

taken to Count Waldstein's study, and left there with the manuscripts. I

found six huge cardboard cases, large enough to contain foolscap paper,

lettered on the back: 'Grafl. Waldstein-Wartenberg'sches Real

Fideicommiss. Dux-Oberleutensdorf: Handschriftlicher Nachlass Casanova.'

The cases were arranged so as to stand like books; they opened at the

side; and on opening them, one after another, I found series after series

of manuscripts roughly thrown together, after some pretence at

arrangement, and lettered with a very generalised description of

contents. The greater part of the manuscripts were in Casanova's

handwriting, which I could see gradually beginning to get shaky with

years. Most were written in French, a certain number in Italian. The

beginning of a catalogue in the library, though said to be by him, was

not in his handwriting. Perhaps it was taken down at his dictation. There

were also some copies of Italian and Latin poems not written by him. Then

there were many big bundles of letters addressed to him, dating over more

than thirty years. Almost all the rest was in his own handwriting.

I came first upon the smaller manuscripts, among which I, found, jumbled

together on the same and on separate scraps of paper, washing-bills,

accounts, hotel bills, lists of letters written, first drafts of letters

with many erasures, notes on books, theological and mathematical notes,

sums, Latin quotations, French and Italian verses, with variants, a long

list of classical names which have and have not been 'francises,' with

reasons for and against; 'what I must wear at Dresden'; headings without

anything to follow, such as: 'Reflexions on respiration, on the true

cause of youth-the crows'; a new method of winning the lottery at Rome;

recipes, among which is a long printed list of perfumes sold at Spa; a

newspaper cutting, dated Prague, 25th October 1790, on the thirty-seventh

balloon ascent of Blanchard; thanks to some 'noble donor' for the gift of

a dog called 'Finette'; a passport for 'Monsieur de Casanova, Venitien,

allant d'ici en Hollande, October 13, 1758 (Ce Passeport bon pour quinze

jours)', together with an order for post-horses, gratis, from Paris to

Bordeaux and Bayonne.'

Occasionally, one gets a glimpse into his daily life at Dux, as in this

note, scribbled on a fragment of paper (here and always I translate the

French literally): 'I beg you to tell my servant what the biscuits are

that I like to eat; dipped in wine, to fortify my stomach. I believe that

they can all be found at Roman's.' Usually, however, these notes, though

often suggested by something closely personal, branch off into more

general considerations; or else begin with general considerations, and

end with a case in point. Thus, for instance, a fragment of three pages

begins: 'A compliment which is only made to gild the pill is a positive

...