Toward the end of 1782, doubtless convinced that he could expect nothing
more from the Tribunal, Casanova entered the service of the Marquis
Spinola as a secretary. Some years before, a certain Carletti, an officer
in the service of the court of Turin, had won from the Marquis a wager of
two hundred and fifty sequins. The existence of this debt seemed to have
completely disappeared from the memory of the loser. By means of the firm
promise of a pecuniary recompense, Casanova intervened to obtain from his
patron a written acknowledgment of the debt owing to Carletti. His effort
was successful; but instead of clinking cash, Carletti contented himself
with remitting to the negotiator an assignment on the amount of the
credit. Casanova's anger caused a violent dispute, in the course of which
Carlo Grimani, at whose house the scene took place, placed him in the
wrong and imposed silence.
The irascible Giacomo conceived a quick resentment. To discharge his
bile, he found nothing less than to publish in the course of the month of
August, under the title of: 'Ne amori ne donne ovvero la Stalla d'Angia
repulita', a libel in which Jean Carlo Grimani, Carletti, and other
notable persons were outraged under transparent mythological pseudonyms.
This writing embroiled the author with the entire body of the Venetian
nobility.
To allow the indignation against him to quiet down, Casanova went to pass
some days at Trieste, then returned to Venice to put his affairs in
order. The idea of recommencing his wandering life alarmed him. "I have
lived fifty-eight years," he wrote, "I could not go on foot with winter
at hand, and when I think of starting on the road to resume my
adventurous life, I laugh at myself in the mirror."
PART THE SECOND
VIENNA-PARIS
I
1783-1785