Patrician influence from without had procured Casanova's removal in
August of that year, 1756, from the loathsome cell he had occupied
for thirteen months in the Piombi--so called from the leaded roof
immediately above those prisons which are simply the garrets of the
Doge's palace.
That cell had been no better than a kennel seldom reached by the light
of day, and so shallow that it was impossible for a man of his fine
height to stand upright in it. But his present prison was comparatively
spacious and it was airy and well-lighted by a barred window, whence he
could see the Lido.
Yet he was desperately chagrined at the change, for he had almost
completed his arrangements to break out of his former cell. The only ray
of hope in his present despair came from the fact that the implement to
which he trusted was still in his possession, safely concealed in the
upholstery of the armchair that had been moved with him into his present
quarters. That implement he had fashioned for himself with infinite
pains out of a door-bolt some twenty inches long, which he had found
discarded in a rubbish-heap in a corner of the attic where he had been
allowed to take his brief daily exercise. Using as a whetstone a small
slab of black marble, similarly acquired, he had shaped that bolt into a
sharp octagonal-pointed chisel or spontoon.
It remained in his possession, but he saw no chance of using it now, for
the suspicions of Lorenzo, the gaoler, were aroused, and daily a couple
of archers came to sound the floors and walls. True they did not sound
the ceiling, which was low and within reach. But it was obviously
impossible to cut through the ceiling in such a manner as to leave the
progress of the work unseen.
Hence his despair of breaking out of a prison where he had spent over a
year without trial or prospect of a trial, and where he seemed likely to
spend the remainder of his days. He did not even know precisely why
he had been arrested. All that Giacomo Casanova knew was that he
was accounted a disturber of the public peace. He was notoriously a
libertine, a gamester, and heavily in debt: also--and this was more
serious--he was accused of practising magic, as indeed he had done, as a
means of exploiting to his own profit the credulity of simpletons of all
degrees. He would have explained to the Inquisitors of State of the Most
Serene Republic that the books of magic found by their apparitors in
his possession--“The Clavicula of Solomon,” the “Zecor-ben,” and other
kindred works--had been collected by him as curious instances of human
aberration. But the Inquisitors of State would not have believed him,
for the Inquisitors were among those who took magic seriously. And,
anyhow, they had never asked him to explain, but had left him as if
forgotten in that abominable verminous cell under the leads, until his
patrician friend had obtained him the mercy of this transfer to better
quarters.
This Casanova was a man of iron nerve and iron constitution. Tall and
well-made, he was boldly handsome, with fine dark eyes and dark brown
hair. In age he was barely one and twenty; but he looked older, as
well he might, for in his adventurer's way he had already gathered more
experience of life than most men gain in half a century.
The same influence that had obtained him his change of cell had also
gained him latterly the privilege--and he esteemed it beyond all
else--of procuring himself books. Desiring the works of Maffai, he
bade his gaoler purchase them out of the allowance made him by the
Inquisitors in accordance with the Venetian custom. This allowance was
graduated to the social status of each prisoner. But the books being
costly and any monthly surplus from his monthly expenditure being
usually the gaoler's perquisite, Lorenzo was reluctant to indulge him.
He mentioned that there was a prisoner above who was well equipped with
books, and who, no doubt, would be glad to lend in exchange.
Yielding to the suggestion, Casanova handed Lorenzo a copy of Peteau's
“Rationarium,” and received next morning, in exchange, the first volume
of Wolf. Within he found a sheet bearing in six verses a paraphrase of
Seneca's epigram, “Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius.” Immediately
he perceived he had stumbled upon a means of corresponding with one who
might be disposed to assist him to break prison.
In reply, being a scholarly rascal (he had been educated for the
priesthood), he wrote six verses himself. Having no pen, he cut the long
nail of his little finger to a point, and, splitting it, supplied
the want. For ink he used the juice of mulberries. In addition to the
verses, he wrote a list of the books in his possession, which he placed
at the disposal of his fellow-captive. He concealed the written sheet in
the spine of that vellum-bound volume; and on the title-page, in warning
of this, he wrote the single Latin word “Latet.” Next morning he handed
the book to Lorenzo, telling him that he had read it, and requesting the
second volume.
That second volume came on the next day, and in the spine of it a long
letter, some sheets of paper, pens, and a pencil. The writer announced
himself as one Marino Balbi, a patrician and a monk, who had been four
years in that prison, where he had since been given a companion in
misfortune, Count Andrea Asquino.
Thus began a regular and very full correspondence between the prisoners,
and soon Casanova--who had not lived on his wits for nothing--was able
to form a shrewd estimate of Balbi's character. The monk's letters
revealed it as compounded of sensuality, stupidity, ingratitude, and
indiscretion.
“In the world,” says Casanova, “I should have had no commerce with a
fellow of his nature. But in the Piombi I was obliged to make capital
out of everything that came under my hands.”
The capital he desired to make in this instance was to ascertain whether
Balbi would be disposed to do for him what he could not do for himself.
He wrote inquiring, and proposing flight.
Balbi replied that he and his companion would do anything possible to
make their escape from that abominable prison, but his lack of resource
made him add that he was convinced that nothing was possible.
“All that you have to do,” wrote Casanova in answer, “is to break
through the ceiling of my cell and get me out of this, then trust to me
to get you out of the Piombi. If you are disposed to make the attempt, I
will supply you with the means, and show you the way.”
It was a characteristically bold reply, revealing to us the utter
gamester that he was in all things.
He knew that Balbi's cell was situated immediately under the leads, and
he hoped that once in it he should be able readily to find a way through
the roof. That cell of Balbi's communicated with a narrow corridor,
no more than a shaft for light and air, which was immediately above
Casanova's prison. And no sooner had Balbi written, consenting, than
Casanova explained what was to do. Balbi must break through the wall
of his cell into the little corridor, and there cut a round hole in the
floor precisely as Casanova had done in his former cell--until nothing
but a shell of ceiling remained--a shell that could be broken down by
half a dozen blows when the moment to escape should have arrived.
To begin with, he ordered Balbi to purchase himself two or three dozen
pictures of saints, with which to paper his walls, using as many as
might be necessary for a screen to hide the hole he would be cutting.
When Balbi wrote that his walls were hung with pictures of saints, it
became a question of conveying the spontoon to him. This was difficult,
and the monk's fatuous suggestions merely served further to reveal his
stupidity. Finally Casanova's wits found the way. He bade Lorenzo buy
him an in-folio edition of the Bible which had just been published, and
it was into the spine of this enormous tome that he packed the precious
spontoon, and thus conveyed it to Balbi, who immediately got to work.
This was at the commencement of October. On the 8th of that month Balbi
wrote to Casanova that a whole night devoted to labour had resulted
merely in the displacing of a single brick, which so discouraged the
faint-hearted monk that he was for abandoning an attempt whose
only result must be to increase in the future the rigour of their
confinement.
Without hesitation, Casanova replied that he was assured of
success--although he was far from having any grounds for any such
assurance. He enjoined the monk to believe him, and to persevere,
confident that as he advanced he would find progress easier. This
proved, indeed, to be the case, for soon Balbi found the brickwork
yielding so rapidly to his efforts that one morning, a week later,
Casanova heard three light taps above his head--the preconcerted signal
by which they were to assure themselves that their notions of the
topography of the prison were correct.
All that day he heard Balbi at work immediately above him, and again on
the morrow, when Balbi wrote that as the floor was of the thickness of
only two boards, he counted upon completing the job on the next day,
without piercing the ceiling.
But it would seem as if Fortune were intent upon making a mock of
Casanova, luring him to heights of hope, merely to cast him down again
into the depths of despair. Just as upon the eve of breaking out of his
former cell mischance had thwarted him, so now, when again he deemed
himself upon the very threshold of liberty, came mischance again to
thwart him.
Early in the afternoon the sound of bolts being drawn outside froze his
very blood and checked his breathing. Yet he had the presence of mind to
give the double knock that was the agreed alarm signal, whereupon Balbi
instantly desisted from his labours overhead.
Came Lorenzo with two archers, leading an ugly, lean little man of
between forty and fifty years of age, shabbily dressed and wearing a
round black wig, whom the tribunal had ordered should share Casanova's
prison for the present. With apologies for leaving such a scoundrel in
Casanova's company, Lorenzo departed, and the newcomer went down upon
his knees, drew forth a chaplet, and began to tell his beads.
Casanova surveyed this intruder at once with disgust and despair.
Presently his disgust was increased when the fellow, whose name was
Soradici, frankly avowed himself a spy in the service of the Council
of Ten, a calling which he warmly defended from the contempt
universally--but unjustly, according to himself--meted out to it. He had
been imprisoned for having failed in his duty on one occasion through
succumbing to a bribe.
Conceive Casanova's frame of mind--his uncertainty as to how long this
monster, as he calls him, might be left in his company, his curbed
impatience to regain his liberty, and his consciousness of the horrible
risk of discovery which delay entailed! He wrote to Balbi that
night while the spy slept, and for the present their operations were
suspended. But not for very long. Soon Casanova's wits resolved how to
turn to account the weakness which he discovered in Soradici.
The spy was devout to the point of bigoted, credulous superstition. He
spent long hours in prayer, and he talked freely of his special devotion
to the Blessed Virgin, and his ardent faith in miracles.
Casanova--the arch-humbug who had worked magic to delude the
credulous--determined there and then to work a miracle for Soradici.
Assuming an inspired air, he solemnly informed the spy one morning that
it had been revealed to him in a dream that Soradici's devotion to
the Rosary was about to be rewarded; that an angel was to be sent from
heaven to deliver him from prison, and that Casanova himself would
accompany him in his flight.
If Soradici doubted, conviction was soon to follow. For Casanova
foretold the very hour at which the angel would come to break into the
prison, and at that hour precisely--Casanova having warned Balbi--the
noise made by the angel overhead flung Soradici into an ecstasy of
terror.
But when, at the end of four hours, the angel desisted from his labours,
Soradici was beset by doubts. Casanova explained to him that since
angels invariably put on the garb of human flesh when descending upon
earth, they labour under human difficulties. He added the prophecy that
the angel would return on the last day of the month, the eve of All
Saints'--two days later--and that he would then conduct them out of
captivity.
By this means Casanova ensured that no betrayal should be feared from
the thoroughly duped Soradici, who now spent the time in praying,
weeping, and talking of his sins and of the inexhaustibility of divine
grace. To make doubly sure, Casanova added the most terrible oath that
if, by a word to the gaoler, Soradici should presume to frustrate the
divine intentions, he would immediately strangle him with his own hands.
On October 31st Lorenzo paid his usual daily visit early in the morning.
After his departure they waited some hours, Soradici in expectant
terror, Casanova in sheer impatience to be at work. Promptly at noon
fell heavy blows overhead, and then, in a cloud of plaster and broken
laths, the heavenly messenger descended clumsily into Casanova's arms.
Soradici found this tall, gaunt, bearded figure, clad in a dirty shirt
and a pair of leather breeches, of a singularly unangelic appearance;
indeed, he looked far more like a devil.
When he produced a pair of scissors, so that the spy might cut
Casanova's beard, which, like the angel's, had grown in captivity,
Soradici ceased to have any illusions on the score of Balbi's celestial
nature. Although still intrigued--since he could not guess at the secret
correspondence that had passed between Casanova and Balbi--he perceived
quite clearly that he had been fooled.
Leaving Soradici in the monk's care, Casanova hoisted himself through
the broken ceiling and gained Balbi's cell, where the sight of Count
Asquino dismayed him. He found a middle-aged man of a corpulence which
must render it impossible for him to face the athletic difficulties that
lay before them; of this the Count himself seemed already persuaded.
“If you think,” was his greeting, as he shook Casanova's hand, “to break
through the roof and find a way down from the leads, I don't see how you
are to succeed without wings. I have not the courage to accompany you,”
he added, “I shall remain and pray for you.”
Attempting no persuasions where they must have been idle, Casanova
passed out of the cell again, and approaching as nearly as possible to
the edge of the attic, he sat down where he could touch the roof as
it sloped immediately above his head. With his spontoon he tested the
timbers, and found them so decayed that they almost crumbled at the
touch. Assured thereby that the cutting of a hole would be an easy
matter, he at once returned to his cell, and there he spent the ensuing
four hours in preparing ropes. He cut up sheets, blankets, coverlets,
and the very cover of his mattress, knotting the strips together with
the utmost care. In the end he found himself equipped with some two
hundred yards of rope, which should be ample for any purpose.
Having made a bundle of the fine taffeta suit in which he had been
arrested, his gay cloak of floss silk, some stockings, shirts, and
handkerchiefs, he and Balbi passed up to the other cell, compelling
Soradici to go with them. Leaving the monk to make a parcel of his
belongings, Casanova went to tackle the roof. By dusk he had made a hole
twice as large as was necessary, and had laid bare the lead sheeting
with which the roof was covered. Unable, single-handed, to raise one of
the sheets, he called Balbi to his aid, and between them, assisted by
the spontoon, which Casanova inserted between the edge of the sheet and
the gutter, they at last succeeded in tearing away the rivets. Then by
putting their shoulders to the lead they bent it upwards until there was
room to emerge, and a view of the sky flooded by the vivid light of the
crescent moon.
Not daring in that light to venture upon the roof, where they would be
seen, they must wait with what patience they could until midnight, when
the moon would have set. So they returned to the cell where they had
left Soradici with Count Asquino.
From Balbi, Casanova had learnt that Asquino, though well supplied with
money, was of an avaricious nature. Nevertheless, since money would be
necessary, Casanova asked the Count for the loan of thirty gold sequins.
Asquino answered him gently that, in the first place, they would not
need money to escape; that, in the second, he had a numerous family;
that, in the third, if Casanova perished the money would be lost; and
that, in the fourth, he had no money.
“My reply,” writes Casanova, “lasted half an hour.”
“Let me remind you,” he said in concluding his exhortation, “of your
promise to pray for us, and let me ask you what sense there can be
in praying for the success of an enterprise to which you refuse to
contribute the most necessary means.”
The old man was so far conquered by Casanova's eloquence that he offered
him two sequins, which Casanova accepted, since he was not in case to
refuse anything.
Thereafter, as they sat waiting for the moon to set, Casanova found his
earlier estimate of the monk's character confirmed. Balbi now broke into
abusive reproaches. He found that Casanova had acted in bad faith
by assuring him that he had formed a complete plan of escape. Had he
suspected that this was a mere gambler's throw on Casanova's part, he
would never have laboured to get him out of his cell. The Count added
his advice that they should abandon an attempt foredoomed to failure,
and, being concerned for the two sequins with which he had so
reluctantly parted, he argued the case at great length. Stifling his
disgust, Casanova assured them that, although it was impossible for him
to afford them details of how he intended to proceed, he was perfectly
confident of success.
At half-past ten he sent Soradici--who had remained silent
throughout--to report upon the night. The spy brought word that in
another hour or so the moon would have set, but that a thick mist was
rising, which must render the leads very dangerous.
“So long as the mist isn't made of oil, I am content,” said Casanova.
“Come, make a bundle of your cloak. It is time we were moving.”
But at this Soradici fell on his knees in the dark, seized Casanova's
hands, and begged to be left behind to pray for their safety, since he
would be sure to meet his death if he attempted to go with them.
Casanova assented readily, delighted to be rid of the fellow. Then in
the dark he wrote as best he could a quite characteristic letter to the
Inquisitors of State, in which he took his leave of them, telling them
that since he had been fetched into the prison without his wishes
being consulted, they could not complain that he should depart without
consulting theirs.
The bundle containing Balbi's clothes, and another made up of half the
rope, he slung from the monk's neck, thereafter doing the same in his
own case. Then, in their shirt-sleeves, their hats on their heads, the
pair of them started on their perilous journey, leaving Count Asquino
and Soradici to pray for them.
Casanova went first, on all fours, and thrusting the point of his
spontoon between the joints of the lead sheeting so as to obtain a hold,
he crawled slowly upwards. To follow, Balbi took a grip of Casanova's
belt with his right hand, so that, in addition to making his own way,
Casanova was compelled to drag the weight of his companion after him,
and this up the sharp gradient of a roof rendered slippery by the mist.
Midway in that laborious ascent, the monk called to him to stop. He had
dropped the bundle containing the clothes, and he hoped that it had not
rolled beyond the gutter, though he did not mention which of them should
retrieve it. After the unreasonableness already endured from this man,
Casanova's exasperation was such in that moment that, he confesses, he
was tempted to kick him after this bundle. Controlling himself, however,
he answered patiently that the matter could not now be helped, and kept
steadily amain.
At last the apex of the roof was reached, and they got astride of it
to breathe and to take a survey of their surroundings. They faced the
several cupolas of the Church of Saint Mark, which is connected with
the ducal palace, being, in fact, no more than the private chapel of the
Doge.
They set down their bundles, and, of course, in the act of doing so
the wretched Balbi must lose his hat, and send it rolling down the roof
after the bundle he had already lost. He cried out that it was an evil
omen.
“On the contrary,” Casanova assured him patiently, “it is a sign of
divine protection; for if your bundle or your hat had happened to
roll to the left instead of the right it would have fallen into the
courtyard, where it would be seen by the guards, who must conclude that
some one is moving on the roof, and so, no doubt, would have discovered
us. As it is your hat has followed your bundle into the canal, where it
can do no harm.”
Thereupon, bidding the monk await his return, Casanova set off alone on
a voyage of discovery, keeping for the present astride of the roof in
his progress. He spent a full hour wandering along the vast roof, going
to right and to left in his quest, but failing completely to make any
helpful discovery, or to find anything to which he could attach a rope.
In the end it began to look as if, after all, he must choose between
returning to prison and flinging himself from the roof into the canal.
He was almost in despair, when in his wanderings his attention was
caught by a dormer window on the canal side, about two-thirds of the way
down the slope of the roof. With infinite precaution he lowered himself
down the steep, slippery incline until he was astride of the little
dormer roof. Leaning well forward, he discovered that a slender grating
barred the leaded panes of the window itself, and for a moment this
grating gave him pause.
Midnight boomed just then from the Church of Saint Mark, like a reminder
that but seven hours remained in which to conquer this and further
difficulties that might confront him, and in which to win clear of
that place, or else submit to a resumption of his imprisonment under
conditions, no doubt, a hundredfold more rigorous.
Lying flat on his stomach, and hanging far over, so as to see what he
was doing, he worked one point of his spontoon into the sash of the
grating, and, levering outwards, he strained until at last it came away
completely in his hands. After that it was an easy matter to shatter the
little latticed window.
Having accomplished so much, he turned, and, using his spontoon as
before, he crawled back to the summit of the roof, and made his way
rapidly along this to the spot where he had left Balbi. The monk,
reduced by now to a state of blending despair, terror, and rage, greeted
Casanova in terms of the grossest abuse for having left him there so
long.
“I was waiting only for daylight,” he concluded, “to return to prison.”
“What did you think had become of me?” asked Casanova.
“I imagined that you had tumbled off the roof.”
“And is this abuse the expression of your joy at finding yourself
mistaken?”
“Where have you been all this time?” the monk counter-questioned
sullenly.
“Come with me and you shall see.”
And taking up his bundle again, Casanova led his companion forward until
they were in line with the dormer. There Casanova showed him what he
had done, and consulted him as to the means to be adopted to enter the
attic. It would be too risky for them to allow themselves to drop from
the sill, since the height of the window from the floor was unknown to
them, and might be considerable. It would be easy for one of them to
lower the other by means of the rope. But it was not apparent how,
hereafter, the other was to follow. Thus reasoned Casanova.
“You had better lower me, anyhow,” said Balbi, without hesitation; for
no doubt he was very tired of that slippery roof, on which a single
false step might have sent him to his account. “Once I am inside you can
consider ways of following me.”
That cold-blooded expression of the fellow's egoism put Casanova in
a rage for the second time since they had left their prison. But, as
before, he conquered it, and without uttering a word he proceeded to
unfasten the coil of rope. Making one end of it secure under Balbi's
arms, he bade the monk lie prone upon the roof, his feet pointing
downwards, and then, paying out rope, he lowered him to the dormer. He
then bade him get through the window as far as the level of his waist,
and wait thus, hanging over and supporting himself upon the sill. When
he had obeyed, Casanova followed, sliding carefully down to the roof of
the dormer. Planting himself firmly, and taking the rope once more, he
bade Balbi to let himself go without fear, and so lowered him to the
floor--a height from the window, as it proved, of some fifty feet. This
extinguished all Casanova's hopes of being able to follow by allowing
himself to drop from the sill. He was dismayed. But the monk, happy to
find himself at last off that accursed roof, and out of all danger of
breaking his neck, called foolishly to Casanova to throw him the rope so
that he might take care of it.
“As may be imagined,” says Casanova, “I was careful not to take this
idiotic advice.”
Not knowing now what was to become of him unless he could discover some
other means than those at his command, he climbed back again to the
summit of the roof, and started off desperately upon another voyage of
discovery. This time he succeeded better than before. He found about a
cupola a terrace which he had not earlier noticed, and on this terrace
a hod of plaster, a trowel, and a ladder some seventy feet long. He
saw his difficulties solved. He passed an end of rope about one of the
rungs, laid the ladder flat along the slope of the roof, and then, still
astride of the apex, he worked his way back, dragging the ladder with
him, until he was once more on a level with the dormer.
But now the difficulty was how to get the ladder through the window,
and he had cause to repent having so hastily deprived himself of his
companion's assistance. He had got the ladder into position, and lowered
it until one of its ends rested upon the dormer, whilst the other
projected some twenty feet beyond the edge of the roof. He slid down
to the dormer, and placing the ladder beside him, drew it up so that he
could reach the eighth rung. To this rung he made fast his rope, then
lowered the ladder again until the upper end of it was in line with
the window through which he sought to introduce it. But he found it
impossible to do so beyond the fifth rung, for at this point the end of
the ladder came in contact with the roof inside, and could be pushed no
farther until it was inclined downward. Now, the only possible way to
accomplish this was by raising the other end.
It occurred to him that he might, by so attaching the rope as to bring
the ladder across the window frame, lower himself hand over hand to the
floor of the attic. But in so doing he must have left the ladder there
to show their pursuers in the morning, not merely the way they had gone,
but for all he knew at this stage, the place where they might then be
still in hiding. Having come so far, at so much risk and labour, he was
determined to leave nothing to chance. To accomplish his object then, he
made his way down to the very edge of the roof, sliding carefully on
his stomach until his feet found support against the marble gutter, the
ladder meanwhile remaining hooked by one of its rungs to the sill of the
dormer.
In that perilous position he lifted his end of the ladder a few inches,
and so contrived to thrust it another foot or so through the window,
whereby its weight was considerably diminished. If he could but get it
another couple of feet farther in he was sure that by returning to the
dormer he would have been able to complete the job. In his anxiety to do
this and to obtain the necessary elevation, he raised himself upon his
knees.
But in the very act of making the thrust he slipped, and, clutching
wildly as he went, he shot over the edge of the roof. He found himself
hanging there, suspended above that terrific abyss by his hands and his
elbows, which had convulsively hooked themselves on to the edge of the
gutter, so that he had it on a level with his breast.
It was a moment of dread the like of which he was never likely to
endure again in a life that was to know many perils and many hairbreadth
escapes. He could not write of it nearly half a century later without
shuddering and growing sick with horror.
A moment he hung there gasping, then almost mechanically, guided by
the sheer instinct of self-preservation, he not merely attempted, but
actually succeeded in raising himself so as to bring his side against
the gutter. Then continuing gradually to raise himself until his waist
was on a level with the edge, he threw the weight of his trunk forward
upon the roof, and slowly brought his right leg up until he had obtained
with his knee a further grip of the gutter. The rest was easy, and
you may conceive him as he lay there on the roof's edge, panting and
shuddering for a moment to regain his breath and nerve.
Meanwhile, the ladder, driven forward by the thrust that had so nearly
cost him his life, had penetrated another three feet through the window,
and hung there immovable. Recovered, he took up his spontoon, which he
had placed in the gutter, and, assisted by it, he climbed back to
the dormer. Almost without further difficulty, he succeeded now in
introducing the ladder until, of its own weight, it swung down into
position.
A moment later he had joined Balbi in the attic, and together they
groped about in the dark, until finding presently a door, they passed
into another chamber, where they discovered furniture by hurtling
against it. Guided by a faint glimmer of light, Casanova made his way to
one of the windows and opened it. He looked out upon a black abyss, and,
having no knowledge of the locality, and no inclination to adventure
himself into unknown regions, he immediately abandoned all idea of
attempting to climb down. He closed the window again, and going back to
the other room, he lay down on the floor, with the bundle of ropes for a
pillow, to wait for dawn.
And so exhausted was he, not only by the efforts of the past hours, and
the terrible experience in which they had culminated, but also because
in the last two days he had scarcely eaten or slept, that straightway,
and greatly to Balbi's indignation and disgust, he fell into a profound
sleep.
He was aroused three and a half hours later by the clamours and shakings
of the exasperated monk. Protesting that such a sleep at such a time was
a thing inconceivable, Balbi informed him that it had just struck five.
It was still dark, but already there was a dim grey glimmer of dawn
by which objects could be faintly discerned. Searching, Casanova
found another door opposite that of the chamber which they had entered
earlier. It was locked, but the lock was a poor one that yielded to half
a dozen blows of the spontoon, and they passed into a little room
beyond which by an open door they came into a long gallery lined with
pigeon-holes stuffed with parchments, which they conceived to be the
archives. At the end of this gallery they found a short flight of
stairs, and below that yet another, which brought them to a glass door.
Opening this, they entered a room which Casanova immediately identified
as the ducal chancellery. Descent from one of its windows would have
been easy, but they would have found themselves in the labyrinth of
courts and alleys behind Saint Mark's, which would not have suited them
at all.
On a table Casanova found a stout bodkin with a long wooden handle, the
implement used by the secretaries for piercing parchments that were to
be joined by a cord bearing the leaden seals of the Republic. He opened
a desk, and rummaging in it, found a letter addressed to the Proveditor
of Corfu, advising a remittance of three thousand sequins for the
repair of the fortress. He rummaged further, seeking the three thousand
sequins, which he would have appropriated without the least scruple.
Unfortunately they were not there.
Quitting the desk, he crossed to the door, not merely to find it locked,
but to discover that it was not the kind of lock that would yield to
blows. There was no way out but by battering away one of the panels, and
to this he addressed himself without hesitation, assisted by Balbi, who
had armed himself with the bodkin, but who trembled fearfully at the
noise of Casanova's blows. There was danger in this, but the danger must
be braved, for time was slipping away. In half an hour they had broken
down all the panel it was possible to remove without the help of a saw.
The opening they had made was at a height of five feet from the ground,
and the splintered woodwork armed it with a fearful array of jagged
teeth.
They dragged a couple of stools to the door, and getting on to these,
Casanova bade Balbi go first. The long, lean monk folded his arms, and
thrust head and shoulders through the hole; then Casanova lifted him,
first by the waist, then by the legs, and so helped him through into the
room beyond. Casanova threw their bundles after him, and then placing a
third stool on top of the other two, climbed on to it, and, being almost
on a level with the opening, was able to get through as far as his
waist, when Balbi took him in his arms and proceeded to drag him out.
But it was done at the cost of torn breeches and lacerated legs, and
when he stood up in the room beyond he was bleeding freely from the
wounds which the jagged edges of the wood had dealt him.
After that they went down two staircases, and came out at last in the
gallery leading to the great doors at the head of that magnificent
flight of steps known as the Giant's Staircase. But these doors--the
main entrance of the palace--were locked, and, at a glance, Casanova saw
that nothing short of a hatchet would serve to open them. There was no
more to be done.
With a resignation that seemed to Balbi entirely cynical, Casanova sat
down on the floor.
“My task is ended,” he announced. “It is now for Heaven or Chance to do
the rest. I don't know whether the palace cleaners will come here to-day
as it is All Saints', or to-morrow, which will be All Souls'. Should any
one come, I shall run for it the moment the door is opened, and you had
best follow me. If no one comes, I shall not move from here, and if I
die of hunger, so much the worse.”
It was a speech that flung the monk into a passion. In burning terms he
reviled Casanova, calling him a madman, a seducer, a deceiver, a liar.
Casanova let him rave. It was just striking six. Precisely an hour had
elapsed since they had left the attic.
Balbi, in his red flannel waistcoat and his puce-coloured leather
breeches, might have passed for a peasant; but Casanova, in torn
garments that were soaked in blood, presented an appearance that was
terrifying and suspicious. This he proceeded to repair. Tearing a
handkerchief, he made shift to bandage his wounds, and then from his
bundle he took his fine taffeta summer suit, which on a winter's day
must render him ridiculous.
He dressed his thick, dark brown hair as best he could, drew on a pair
of white stockings, and donned three lace shirts one over another. His
fine cloak of floss silk he gave to Balbi, who looked for all the world
as if he had stolen it.
Thus dressed, his fine hat laced with point of Spain on his head,
Casanova opened a window and looked out. At once he was seen by some
idlers in the courtyard, who, amazed at his appearance there, and
conceiving that he must have been locked in by mistake on the previous
day, went off at once to advise the porter. Meanwhile, Casanova, vexed
at having shown himself where he had not expected any one, and little
guessing how excellently this was to serve his ends, left the window
and went to sit beside the angry friar, who greeted him with fresh
revilings.
A sound of steps and a rattle of keys stemmed Balbi's reproaches in full
flow. The lock groaned.
“Not a word,” said Casanova to the monk, “but follow me.”
Holding his spontoon ready, but concealed under his coat, he stepped to
the side of the door. It opened, and the porter, who had come alone
and bareheaded, stared in stupefaction at the strange apparition of
Casanova.
Casanova took advantage of that paralyzing amazement. Without uttering a
word, he stepped quickly across the threshold, and with Balbi close upon
his heels, he went down the Giant's Staircase in a flash, crossed the
little square, reached the canal, bundled Balbi into the first gondola
he found there, and jumped in after him.
“I want to go to Fusine, and quickly,” he announced. “Call another
oarsman.”
All was ready, and in a moment the gondola was skimming the canal.
Dressed in his unseasonable suit, and accompanied by the still more
ridiculous figure of Balbi in his gaudy cloak and without a hat, he
imagined he would be taken for a charlatan or an astrologer.
The gondola slipped past the custom-house, and took the canal of the
Giudecca. Halfway down this, Casanova put his head out of the little
cabin to address the gondolier in the poop.
“Do you think we shall reach Mestre in an hour?”
“Mestre?” quoth the gondolier. “But you said Fusine.”
“No, no, I said Mestre--at least, I intended to say Mestre.”
And so the gondola was headed for Mestre by a gondolier who professed
himself ready to convey his excellency to England if he desired it.
The sun was rising, and the water assumed an opalescent hue. It was a
delicious morning, Casanova tells us, and I suspect that never had any
morning seemed to that audacious, amiable rascal as delicious as this
upon which he regained his liberty, which no man ever valued more
highly.
In spirit he was already safely over the frontiers of the Most Serene
Republic, impatient to transfer his body thither, as he shortly did,
through vicissitudes that are a narrative in themselves, and no part of
this story of his escape from the Piombi and the Venetian Inquisitors of
State.
XIII. THE NIGHT OF MASQUERADE--The Assassination Of Gustavus III Of
Sweden
Baron Bjelke sprang from his carriage almost before it had come to a
standstill and without waiting for the footman to let down the steps.
With a haste entirely foreign to a person of his station and importance,
he swept into the great vestibule of the palace, and in a quivering
voice flung a question at the first lackey he encountered:
“Has His Majesty started yet?”
“Not yet, my lord.”
The answer lessened his haste, but not his agitation. He cast off the
heavy wolfskin pelisse in which he had been wrapped, and, leaving it in
the hands of the servant, went briskly up the grand staircase, a tall,
youthful figure, very graceful in the suit of black he wore.
As he passed through a succession of ante-rooms on his way to the
private apartments of the King, those present observed the pallor of his
clean-cut face under the auburn tie-wig he affected, and the feverish
glow of eyes that took account of no one. They could not guess that
Baron Bjelke, the King's secretary and favourite, carried in his hands
the life of his royal master, or its equivalent in the shape of the
secret of the plot to assassinate him.
In many ways Bjelke was no better than the other profligate minions of
the profligate Gustavus of Sweden. But he had this advantage over them,
that his intellect was above their average. He had detected the first
signs of the approach of that storm which the King himself had so
heedlessly provoked. He knew, as much by reason as by intuition, that,
in these days when the neighbouring State of France writhed in the
throes of a terrific revolution against monarchic and aristocratic
tyranny, it was not safe for a king to persist in the abuse of his
parasitic power. New ideas of socialism were in the air. They were
spreading through Europe, and it was not only in France that men
accounted it an infamous anachronism that the great mass of a community
should toil and sweat and suffer for the benefit of an insolent
minority.
Already had there been trouble with the peasantry in Sweden, and Bjelke
had endangered his position as a royal favourite by presuming to warn
his master. Gustavus III desired amusement, not wisdom, from those
about him. He could not be brought to realize the responsibilities which
kingship imposes upon a man. It has been pretended that he was endowed
with great gifts of mind. He may have been, though the thing has been
pretended of so many princes that one may be sceptical where evidence
is lacking. If he possessed those gifts, he succeeded wonderfully in
concealing them under a nature that was frivolously gay, dissolute, and
extravagant.
His extravagance forced him into monstrous extortions when only a
madman would have wasted in profligacy the wealth so cruelly wrung from
long-suffering subjects. From extortion he was driven by his desperate
need of money into flagrant dishonesty. At a stroke of the pen he had
reduced the value of the paper currency by one-third--a reduction so
violent and sudden that, whilst it impoverished many, it involved
some in absolute ruin--and this that he might gratify his appetite
for magnificence and enrich the rapacious favourites who shared his
profligacy.
The unrest in the kingdom spread. It was no longer a question of the
resentment of a more or less docile peasantry whose first stirrings of
revolt were easily quelled. The lesser nobility of Sweden were angered
by a measure--following upon so many others--that bore peculiarly
heavily upon themselves; and out of that anger, fanned by one man--John
Jacob Ankarstrom--who had felt the vindictive spirit of royal injustice,
flamed in secret the conspiracy against the King's life which Bjelke had
discovered.
He had discovered it by the perilous course of joining the conspirators.
He had won their confidence, and they recognized that his collaboration
was rendered invaluable by the position he held so near the King. And
in his subtle wisdom, at considerable danger to himself, Bjelke had kept
his counsel. He had waited until now, until the moment when the blow was
about to fall, before making the disclosure which should not only save
Gustavus, but enable him to cast a net in which all the plotters must be
caught. And he hoped that when Gustavus perceived the narrowness of his
escape, and the reality of the dangers amid which he walked, he would
consider the wisdom of taking another course in future.
He had reached the door of the last ante-chamber, when a detaining
hand was laid upon his arm. He found himself accosted by a page--the
offspring of one of the noblest families in Sweden, and the son of one
of Bjelke's closest friends, a fair-haired, impudent boy to whom the
secretary permitted a certain familiarity.
“Are you on your way to the King, Baron?” the lad inquired.
“I am, Carl. What is it?”
“A letter for His Majesty--a note fragrant as a midsummer rose--which a
servant has just delivered to me. Will you take it?”
“Give it to me, impudence,” said Bjelke, the ghost of a smile lighting
for a moment his white face.
He took the letter and passed on into the last antechamber, which was
empty of all but a single chamberlain-in-waiting. This chamberlain bowed
respectfully to the Baron.
“His Majesty?” said Bjelke.
“He is dressing. Shall I announce Your Excellency?”
“Pray do.”
The chamberlain vanished, and Bjelke was left alone. Waiting, he stood
there, idly fingering the scented note he had received from the page.
As he turned it in his fingers the superscription came uppermost, and
he turned it no more. His eyes lost their absorbed look, their glance
quickened into attention, a frown shaped itself between them like a
scar; his breathing, suspended a moment, was renewed with a gasp. He
stepped aside to a table bearing a score of candles clustered in a
massive silver branch, and held the note so that the light fell full
upon the writing.
Standing thus, he passed a hand over his eyes and stared again, two
hectic spots burning now in his white cheeks. Abruptly, disregarding
the superscription, his trembling fingers snapped the blank seal and
unfolded the letter addressed to his royal master. He was still reading
when the chamberlain returned to announce that the King was pleased to
see the Baron at once. He did not seem to hear the announcement. His
attention was all upon the letter, his lips drawn back from his teeth in
a grin, and beads of perspiration glistening upon his brow.
“His Majesty--” the chamberlain was beginning to repeat, when he broke
off suddenly. “Your Excellency is ill?”
“Ill?”
Bjelke stared at him with glassy eyes. He crumpled the letter in his
hand and stuffed one and the other into the pocket of his black satin
coat. He attempted to laugh to reassure the startled chamberlain, and
achieved a ghastly grimace.
“I must not keep His Majesty waiting,” he said thickly, and stumbled
on, leaving in the chamberlain's mind a suspicion that His Majesty's
secretary was not quite sober.
But Bjelke so far conquered his emotion that he was almost his usual
imperturbable self when he reached the royal dressing-room; indeed, he
no longer displayed even the agitation that had possessed him when first
he entered the palace.
Gustavus, a slight, handsome man of a good height, was standing before
a cheval-glass when Bjelke came in. Francois, the priceless valet
His Majesty had brought back from his last pleasure-seeking visit
to pre-revolutionary Paris some five years ago, was standing back
judicially to consider the domino he had just placed upon the royal
shoulders. Baron Armfelt whom the conspirators accused of wielding the
most sinister of all the sinister influences that perverted the King's
mind--dressed from head to foot in shimmering white satin, lounged on a
divan with all the easy familiarity permitted to this most intimate of
courtiers, the associate of all royal follies.
Gustavus looked over his shoulder as he entered.
“Why, Bjelke,” he exclaimed, “I thought you had gone into the country!”
“I am at a loss,” replied Bjelke, “to imagine what should have given
Your Majesty so mistaken an impression.” And he might have smiled
inwardly to observe how his words seemed to put Gustavus out of
countenance.
The King laughed, nevertheless, with an affectation of ease.
“I inferred it from your absence from Court on such a night. What has
been keeping you?” But, without waiting for an answer, he fired another
question. “What do you say to my domino, Bjelke?”
It was a garment embroidered upon a black satin ground with tongues of
flame so cunningly wrought in mingling threads of scarlet and gold that
as he turned about now they flashed in the candlelight, and seemed to
leap like tongues of living fire.
“Your Majesty will have a great success,” said Bjelke, and to himself
relished the full grimness of his joke. For a terrible joke it was,
seeing that he no longer intended to discharge the errand which had
brought him in such haste to the palace.
“Faith, I deserve it!” was the flippant answer, and he turned again to
the mirror to adjust a patch on the left side of his chin. “There is
genius in this domino, and it is not the genius of Francois, for the
scheme of flames is my very own, the fruit of a deal of thought and
study.”
There Gustavus uttered his whole character. As a master of the revels,
or an opera impresario, this royal rake would have been a complete
success in life. The pity of it was that the accident of birth should
have robed him in the royal purple. Like many another prince who has
come to a violent end, he was born to the wrong metier.
“I derived the notion,” he continued, “from a sanbenito in a Goya
picture.”
“An ominous garb,” said Bjelke, smiling curiously. “The garment of the
sinner on his way to penitential doom.”
Armfelt cried out in a protest of mock horror, but Gustavus laughed
cynically.
“Oh, I confess that it would be most apt. I had not thought of it.”
His fingers sought a pomatum box, and in doing so displaced a
toilet-case of red morocco. An oblong paper package fell from the top of
this and arrested the King's attention.
“Why, what is this?” He took it up--a letter bearing the superscription: