The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 11: Paris and HollandCasanova, Giacomo
History
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 11: Paris and Holland
Casanova, Giacomo
Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798; Europe -- History -- 18th century -- Biography
My business left me no time for sleep. M. Casanova came and asked me to
dinner, telling me to meet him on the Exchange--a place well worth
seeing. Millionaires are as plentiful as blackberries, and anyone who is
not worth more than a hundred thousand florins is considered a poor man.
I found M. d'O---- there, and was asked by him to dinner the following day
at a small house he had on the Amstel. M. Casanova treated me with the
greatest courtesy. After reading my pedigree he went for his own, and
found it exactly the same; but he merely laughed, and seemed to care
little about it, differing in that respect from Don Antonio of Naples,
who set such store by my pedigree, and treated me with such politeness on
that account. Nevertheless, he bade me make use of him in anything
relating to business if I did anything in that way. I thought his
daughter pretty, but neither her charms nor her wit made any impression
on me. My thoughts were taken up with Esther, and I talked so much about
her at dinner that at last my cousin declared that she did not consider
her pretty. Oh, you women! beauty is the only unpardonable offence in
your eyes. Mdlle. Casanova was Esther's friend, and yet she could not
bear to hear her praised.
On my seeing M. d'O---- again after dinner, he told me that if I cared to
take fifteen per cent. on my shares, he would take them from me and save
broker's expenses. I thought the offer a good one, and I accepted it,
taking a bill of exchange on Tourton & Baur. At the rate of exchange at
Hamburg I found I should have seventy-two thousand francs, although at
five per cent. I had only expected sixty-nine thousand. This transaction
won me high favour with Madame d'Urfe, who, perhaps, had not expected me
to be so honest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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