Whether the author died before the work was complete, whether the
concluding volumes were destroyed by himself or his literary executors,
or whether the MS. fell into bad hands, seems a matter of uncertainty,
and the materials available towards a continuation of the Memoirs are
extremely fragmentary. We know, however, that Casanova at last succeeded
in obtaining his pardon from the authorities of the Republic, and he
returned to Venice, where he exercised the honourable office of secret
agent of the State Inquisitors--in plain language, he became a spy. It
seems that the Knight of the Golden Spur made a rather indifferent
"agent;" not surely, as a French writer suggests, because the dirty work
was too dirty for his fingers, but probably because he was getting old
and stupid and out-of-date, and failed to keep in touch with new forms of
turpitude. He left Venice again and paid a visit to Vienna, saw beloved
Paris once more, and there met Count Wallenstein, or Waldstein. The
conversation turned on magic and the occult sciences, in, which Casanova
was an adept, as the reader of the Memoirs will remember, and the count
took a fancy to the charlatan. In short Casanova became librarian at the
count's Castle of Dux, near Teplitz, and there he spent the fourteen
remaining years of his life.
As the Prince de Ligne (from whose Memoirs we learn these particulars)
remarks, Casanova's life had been a stormy and adventurous one, and it
might have been expected that he would have found his patron's library a
pleasant refuge after so many toils and travels. But the man carried
rough weather and storm in his own heart, and found daily opportunities
of mortification and resentment. The coffee was ill made, the maccaroni
not cooked in the true Italian style, the dogs had bayed during the
night, he had been made to dine at a small table, the parish priest had
tried to convert him, the soup had been served too hot on purpose to
annoy him, he had not been introduced to a distinguished guest, the count
had lent a book without telling him, a groom had not taken off his hat;
such were his complaints. The fact is Casanova felt his dependent
position and his utter poverty, and was all the more determined to stand
to his dignity as a man who had talked with all the crowned heads of
Europe, and had fought a duel with the Polish general. And he had another
reason for finding life bitter--he had lived beyond his time. Louis XV.
was dead, and Louis XVI. had been guillotined; the Revolution had come;
and Casanova, his dress, and his manners, appeared as odd and antique as
some "blood of the Regency" would appear to us of these days. Sixty years
before, Marcel, the famous dancing-master, had taught young Casanova how
to enter a room with a lowly and ceremonious bow; and still, though the
eighteenth century is drawing to a close, old Casanova enters the rooms
of Dux with the same stately bow, but now everyone laughs. Old Casanova
treads the grave measures of the minuet; they applauded his dancing once,
but now everyone laughs. Young Casanova was always dressed in the height
of the fashion; but the age of powder, wigs, velvets, and silks has
departed, and old Casanova's attempts at elegance ("Strass" diamonds have
replaced the genuine stones with him) are likewise greeted with laughter.
No wonder the old adventurer denounces the whole house of Jacobins and
canaille; the world, he feels, is permanently out of joint for him;
everything is cross, and everyone is in a conspiracy to drive the iron
into his soul.
At last these persecutions, real or imaginary, drive him away from Dux;
he considers his genius bids him go, and, as before, he obeys. Casanova
has but little pleasure or profit out of this his last journey; he has to
dance attendance in ante-chambers; no one will give him any office,
whether as tutor, librarian, or chamberlain. In one quarter only is he
well received--namely, by the famous Duke of Weimar; but in a few days he
becomes madly jealous of the duke's more famous proteges, Goethe and
Wieland, and goes off declaiming against them and German literature
generally--with which literature he was wholly unacquainted. From Weimar
to Berlin; where there are Jews to whom he has introductions. Casanova
thinks them ignorant, superstitious, and knavish; but they lend him
money, and he gives bills on Count Wallenstein, which are paid. In six
weeks the wanderer returns to Dux, and is welcomed with open arms; his
journeys are over at last.
But not his troubles. A week after his return there are strawberries at
dessert; everyone is served before himself, and when the plate comes
round to him it is empty. Worse still: his portrait is missing from his
room, and is discovered 'salement placarde a la porte des lieux
d'aisance'!
Five more years of life remained to him. They were passed in such petty
mortifications as we have narrated, in grieving over his 'afreuse
vieillesse', and in laments over the conquest of his native land Venice,
once so splendid and powerful. His appetite began to fail, and with it
failed his last source of pleasure, so death came to him somewhat as a
release. He received the sacraments with devotion, exclaimed,--
"Grand Dieu, et vous tous temoins de ma mort, j'ai vecu en philosophe, et
je meurs en Chretien," and so died.
It was a quiet ending to a wonderfully brilliant and entirely useless
career. It has been suggested that if the age in which Casanova lived had
been less corrupt, he himself might have used his all but universal
talents to some advantage, but to our mind Casanova would always have
remained Casanova. He came of a family of adventurers, and the reader of
his Memoirs will remark how he continually ruined his prospects by his
ineradicable love for disreputable company. His "Bohemianism" was in his
blood, and in his old age he regrets--not his past follies, but his
inability to commit folly any longer. Now and again we are inclined to
pronounce Casanova to be an amiable man; and if to his generosity and
good nature he had added some elementary knowledge of the distinction
between right and wrong, he might certainly have laid some claim to the
character. The Prince de Ligne draws the following portrait of him under
the name of Aventuros:
"He would be a handsome man if he were not ugly; he is tall and strongly
built, but his dark complexion and his glittering eyes give him a fierce
expression. He is easier to annoy than amuse; he laughs little but makes
others laugh by the peculiar turn he gives to his conversation. He knows
everything except those matters on the knowledge of which he chiefly
prides himself, namely, dancing, the French language, good taste, and
knowledge of the world. Everything about him is comic, except his
comedies; and all his writings are philosophical, saving those which
treat of philosophy. He is a perfect well of knowledge, but he quotes
Homer and Horace ad nauseam."
SUPPLEMENT
TO
THE MEMOIRS OF
JACQUES CASANOVA
DE SEINGALT
Containing an Outline of Casanova's career from the
year 1774, when his own Memoirs abruptly
end, until his death in 1798