Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30.

Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30.

“One sees everywhere this unhappy rebel against the justice of the August Council, presenting himself boldly, his head carried high, and well equipped.  He is received in many houses and announces his intention of going to Trieste and, from there, of returning to Germany.  He is a man of forty years or more,” [in reality, forty-seven] “of high stature and excellent appearance, vigorous, of a very brown color, the eye bright, the wig short and chestnut-brown.  He is said to be haughty and disdainful; he speaks at length, with spirit and erudition.” [Letter of information to the Very Illustrious Giovanni Zon, Secretary of the August Council of Ten at Venice. 2 October 1772.]

Returning to Venice after an absence of eighteen years, Casanova renewed his acquaintance with many old friends, among whom were: 

The Christine of the Memoirs.  Charles, who married Christine, the marriage being arranged by Casanova while in Venice in 1747, was of financial assistance to Casanova, who “found him a true friend.”  Charles died “a few months before my last departure from Venice,” in 1783.

Mlle. X——­ C——­ V——­, really Giustina de Wynne, widow of the Count Rosenberg, Austrian Ambassador at Venice.  “Fifteen years afterwards, I saw her again and she was a widow, happy enough, apparently, and enjoying a great reputation on account of her rank, wit and social qualities, but our connection was never renewed.”

Callimena, who was kind to him “for love’s sake alone” at Sorrento in 1770.

Marcoline, the girl he took away from his younger brother, the Abby Casanova, at Geneva in 1763.

Father Balbi, the companion of his flight from The Leads.

Doctor Gozzi, his former teacher at Padua, now become Arch-Priest of St. George of the Valley, and his sister Betting.  “When I went to pay him a visit . . . she breathed her last in my arms, in 1776, twenty-four hours after my arrival.  I will speak of her death in due time.”

Angela Toselli, his first passion.  In 1758 this girl married the advocate Francesco Barnaba Rizzotti, and in the following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maria Rizzotti (later married to a M. Kaiser) who lived at Vienna and whose letters to Casanova were preserved at Dux.

C——­ C——­, the young girl whose love affair with Casanova became involved with that of the nun M——­ M——­ Casanova found her in Venice “a widow and poorly off.”

The dancing girl Binetti, who assisted Casanova in his flight from Stuttgart in 1760, whom he met again in London in 1763, and who was the cause of his duel with Count Branicki at Warsaw in 1766.  She danced frequently at Venice between 1769 and 1780.

The good and indulgent Mme. Manzoni, “of whom I shall have to speak very often.”

The patricians Andrea Memmo and his brother Bernardo who, with P. Zaguri were personages of considerable standing in the Republic and who remained his constant friends.  Andrea Memmo was the cause of the embarrassment in which Mlle. X——­ C——­ V——­ found herself in Paris and which Casanova vainly endeavored to remove by applications of his astonishing specific, the ‘aroph of Paracelsus’.

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Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.