The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 30: Old Age and DeathCasanova, Giacomo
History
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 30: Old Age and Death
Casanova, Giacomo
Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798; Europe -- History -- 18th century -- Biography
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. . . ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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