Chapter II

For more than two-thirds of a century it has been known that Casanova spent the last fourteen years of his life at Dux, that he wrote his _Memoirs_ there, and that he died there. During all this time people have been discussing the authenticity and the truthfulness of the _Memoirs_, they have been searching for information about Casanova in various directions, and yet hardly any one has ever taken the trouble, or obtained the permission, to make a careful examination in precisely the one place where information was most likely to be found. The very existence of the manuscripts at Dux was known only to a few, and to most of these only on hearsay; and thus the singular good fortune was reserved for me, on my visit to Count Waldstein in September 1899, to be the first to discover the most interesting things contained in these manuscripts. M. Octave Uzanne, though he had not himself visited Dux, had indeed procured copies of some of the manuscripts, a few of which were published by him in _Le Livre_, in 1887 and 1889. But with the death of _Le Livre_ in 1889 the _Casanova inédit_ came to an end, and has never, so far as I know, been continued elsewhere. Beyond the publication of these fragments, nothing has been done with the manuscripts at Dux, nor has an account of them ever been given by any one who has been allowed to examine them.

For five years, ever since I had discovered the documents in the Venetian archives, I had wanted to go to Dux; and in 1899, when I was staying with Count Lützow at Zampach, in Bohemia, I found the way kindly opened for me. Count Waldstein, the present head of the family, with extreme courtesy, put all his manuscripts at my disposal, and invited me to stay with him. Unluckily, he was called away on the morning of the day that I reached Dux. He had left everything ready for me, and I was shown over the castle by a friend of his, Dr. Kittel, whose courtesy I should like also to acknowledge. After a hurried visit to the castle we started on the long drive to Oberleutensdorf, a smaller Schloss near Komotau, where the Waldstein family was then staying. The air was sharp and bracing; the two Russian horses flew like the wind; I was whirled along in an unfamiliar darkness, through a strange country, black with coal mines, through dark pine woods, where a wild peasantry dwelt in little mining towns. Here and there, a few men and women passed us on the road, in their Sunday finery; then a long space of silence, and we were in the open country, galloping between broad fields; and always in a haze of lovely hills, which I saw more distinctly as we drove back next morning.

The return to Dux was like a triumphal entry, as we dashed through the market-place filled with people come for the Monday market, pots and pans and vegetables strewn in heaps all over the ground, on the rough paving stones, up to the great gateway of the castle, leaving but just room for us to drive through their midst. I had the sensation of an enormous building: all Bohemian castles are big, but this one was like a royal palace. Set there in the midst of the town, after the Bohemian fashion, it opens at the back upon great gardens, as if it were in the midst of the country. I walked through room after room, along corridor after corridor; everywhere there were pictures, everywhere portraits of Wallenstein, and battle-scenes in which he led on his troops. The library, which was formed, or at least arranged, by Casanova, and which remains as he left it, contains some 25,000 volumes, some of them of considerable value; one of the most famous books in Bohemian literature, Skála's _History of the Church_, exists in manuscript at Dux, and it is from this manuscript that the two published volumes of it were printed. The library forms part of the Museum, which occupies a ground-floor wing of the castle. The first room is an armoury, in which all kinds of arms are arranged, in a decorative way, covering the ceiling and the walls with strange patterns. The second room contains pottery, collected by Casanova's Waldstein on his Eastern travels. The third room is full of curious mechanical toys, and cabinets, and carvings in ivory. Finally, we come to the library, contained in the two innermost rooms. The book-shelves are painted white, and reach to the low-vaulted ceilings, which are white-washed. At the end of a bookcase, in the corner of one of the windows, hangs a fine engraved portrait of Casanova.

After I had been all over the castle, so long Casanova's home, I was taken to Count Waldstein's study, and left there with the manuscripts. I found six huge cardboard cases, large enough to contain foolscap paper, lettered on the back: _Gräfl. Waldstein-Wartenberg'sches Real Fideicommiss. Dux-Oberleutensdorf: Handschriftlicher Nachlass Casanova_. The cases were arranged so as to stand like books; they opened at the side; and on opening them, one after another, I found series after series of manuscripts roughly thrown together, after some pretence at arrangement, and lettered with a very generalised description of contents. The greater part of the manuscripts were in Casanova's handwriting, which I could see gradually beginning to get shaky with years. Most were written in French, a certain number in Italian. The beginning of a catalogue in the library, though said to be by him, was not in his handwriting. Perhaps it was taken down at his dictation. There were also some copies of Italian and Latin poems not written by him. Then there were many big bundles of letters addressed to him, dating over more than thirty years. Almost all the rest was in his own handwriting.

I came first upon the smaller manuscripts, among which I found, jumbled together on the same and on separate scraps of paper, washing-bills, accounts, hotel bills, lists of letters written, first drafts of letters with many erasures, notes on books, theological and mathematical notes, sums, Latin quotations, French and Italian verses, with variants, a long list of classical names which have and have not been _francisés_, with reasons for and against; 'what I must wear at Dresden'; headings without anything to follow, such as: 'Reflexions on respiration, on the true cause of youth--the crows'; a new method of winning the lottery at Rome; recipes, among which is a long printed list of perfumes sold at Spa; a newspaper cutting, dated Prague, 25th October 1790, on the thirty-seventh balloon ascent of Blanchard; thanks to some 'noble donor' for the gift of a dog called 'Finette'; a passport for _Monsieur de Casanova, Vénitien, allant d'ici en Hollande_, October 13, 1758 (_Ce Passeport bon pour quinze jours_), together with an order for post-horses, gratis, from Paris to Bordeaux and Bayonne.[1]

Occasionally, one gets a glimpse into his daily life at Dux, as in this note, scribbled on a fragment of paper (here and always I translate the French literally): 'I beg you to tell my servant what the biscuits are that I like to eat, dipped in wine, to fortify my stomach. I believe that they can all be found at Roman's.' Usually, however, these notes, though often suggested by something closely personal, branch off into more general considerations; or else begin with general considerations, and end with a case in point. Thus, for instance, a fragment of three pages begins: 'A compliment which is only made to gild the pill is a positive impertinence, and Monsieur Bailli is nothing but a charlatan; the monarch ought to have spit in his face, but the monarch trembled with fear.' A manuscript entitled _Essai d'Égoïsme_, dated, 'Dux, this 27th June, 1769,' contains, in the midst of various reflections, an offer to let his _appartement_ in return for enough money to 'tranquillise for six months two Jew creditors at Prague.' Another manuscript is headed 'Pride and Folly,' and begins with a long series of antitheses, such as: 'All fools are not proud, and all proud men are fools. Many fools are happy, all proud men are unhappy.' On the same sheet follows this instance or application:

Whether it is possible to compose a Latin distich of the greatest
beauty without knowing either the Latin language or prosody. We
must examine the possibility and the impossibility, and afterwards
see who is the man who says he is the author of the distich, for
there are extraordinary people in the world. My brother, in short,
ought to have composed the distich, because he says so, and because
he confided it to me tête-à-tête. I had, it is true, difficulty in
believing him; but what is one to do? Either one must believe, or
suppose him capable of telling a lie which could only be told by a
fool; and that is impossible, for all Europe knows that my brother
is not a fool.

Here, as so often in these manuscripts, we seem to see Casanova thinking on paper. He uses scraps of paper (sometimes the blank page of a letter, on the other side of which we see the address) as a kind of informal diary; and it is characteristic of him, of the man of infinitely curious mind, which this adventurer really was, that there are so few merely personal notes among these casual jottings. Often, they are purely abstract; at times, metaphysical _jeux d'esprit_, like the sheet of fourteen 'Different Wagers,' which begins:

I wager that it is not true that a man who weighs a hundred pounds
will weigh more if you kill him. I wager that if there is any
difference, he will weigh less. I wager that diamond powder has not
sufficient force to kill a man.

Side by side with these fanciful excursions into science, come more serious ones, as in the note on Algebra, which traces its progress since the year 1494, before which 'it had only arrived at the solution of problems of the second degree, inclusive.' A scrap of paper tells us that Casanova 'did not like regular towns.' 'I like,' he says, 'Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan, Constantinople, Genoa.' Then he becomes abstract and inquisitive again, and writes two pages, full of curious, out-of-the-way learning, on the name of Paradise:

The name of Paradise is a name in Genesis which indicates a place
of pleasure (_lieu voluptueux_): this term is Persian. This place
of pleasure was made by God before he had created man.

It may be remembered that Casanova quarrelled with Voltaire, because Voltaire had told him frankly that his translation of _L'Écossaise_ was a bad translation. It is piquant to read another note written in this style of righteous indignation:

Voltaire, the hardy Voltaire, whose pen is without bit or bridle;
Voltaire, who devoured the Bible, and ridiculed our dogmas, doubts,
and after having made proselytes to impiety, is not ashamed, being
reduced to the extremity of life, to ask for the sacraments, and to
cover his body with more relics than St. Louis had at Amboise.

Here is an argument more in keeping with the tone of the _Memoirs_:

A girl who is pretty and good, and as virtuous as you please, ought
not to take it ill that a man, carried away by her charms, should
set himself to the task of making their conquest. If this man
cannot please her by any means, even if his passion be criminal,
she ought never to take offence at it, nor treat him unkindly; she
ought to be gentle, and pity him, if she does not love him, and
think it enough to keep invincibly hold upon her own duty.

Occasionally he touches upon æsthetical matters, as in a fragment which begins with liberal definition of beauty:

Harmony makes beauty, says M. de S. P. (Bernardin de St. Pierre),
but the definition is too short, if he thinks he has said
everything. Here is mine. Remember that the subject is
metaphysical. An object really beautiful ought to seem beautiful to
all whose eyes fall upon it. That is all; there is nothing more to
be said.

At times we have an anecdote and its commentary, perhaps jotted down for use in that latter part of the _Memoirs_ which was never written, or which has been lost. Here is a single sheet, dated 'this 2nd September, 1791,' and headed _Souvenir_:

The Prince de Rosenberg said to me, as we went down stairs, that
Madame de Rosenberg was dead, and asked me if the Comte de
Waldstein had in the library the illustration of the Villa
d'Altichiero, which the Emperor had asked for in vain at the city
library of Prague, and when I answered 'yes,' he gave an equivocal
laugh. A moment afterwards, he asked me if he might tell the
Emperor. 'Why not, monseigneur? It is not a secret.' 'Is His
Majesty coming to Dux?' 'If he goes to Oberlaitensdorf (_sic_) he
will go to Dux, too; and he may ask you for it, for there is a
monument there which relates to him when he was Grand Duke.' 'In
that case, His Majesty can also see my critical remarks on the
Egyptian prints.'

The Emperor asked me this morning, 6th October, how I employed my
time at Dux, and I told him that I was making an Italian anthology.
'You have all the Italians, then?' 'All, sire.' See what a lie
leads to. If I had not lied in saying that I was making an
anthology, I should not have found myself obliged to lie again in
saying that we have all the Italian poets. If the Emperor comes to
Dux, I shall kill myself.

'They say that this Dux is a delightful spot,' says Casanova in one of the most personal of his notes, 'and I see that it might be for many; but not for me, for what delights me in my old age is independent of the place which I inhabit. When I do not sleep I dream, and when I am tired of dreaming I blacken paper, then I read, and most often reject all that my pen has vomited.' Here we see him blackening paper, on every occasion, and for every purpose. In one bundle I found an unfinished story about Roland, and some adventure with women in a cave; then a 'Meditation on arising from sleep, 19th May 1789'; then a 'Short Reflection of a Philosopher who finds himself thinking of procuring his own death. At Dux, on getting out of bed on 13th October 1793, day dedicated to St. Lucy, memorable in my too long life.' A big budget, containing cryptograms, is headed 'Grammatical Lottery'; and there is the title-page of a treatise on _The Duplication of the Hexahedron, demonstrated geometrically to all the Universities and all the Academies of Europe_.[2] There are innumerable verses, French and Italian, in all stages, occasionally attaining the finality of these lines, which appear in half a dozen tentative forms:

_Sans mystère point de plaisirs,_
_Sans silence point de mystère._
_Charme divin de mes loisirs,_
_Solitude! que tu m'es chère!_

Then there are a number of more or less complete manuscripts of some extent. There is the manuscript of the translation of Homer's _Iliad, in ottava rima_ (published in Venice, 1775-8); of the _Histoire de Venise_, of the _Icosameron_, a curious book published in 1787, purporting to be 'translated from English,' but really an original work of Casanova; _Philocalies sur les Sottises des Mortels_, a long manuscript never published; the sketch and beginning of _Le Polémarque, ou la Calomnie démasquée par la présence d'esprit. Tragicomédie en trois actes, composée à Dux dans le mois de Juin de l'Année, 1791_, which recurs again under the form of the _Polémoscopé: La Lorgnette menteuse ou la Calomnie démasquée_, acted before the Princess de Ligne, at her château at Teplitz, 1791. There is a treatise in Italian, _Delle Passioni_; there are long dialogues, such as _Le Philosophe et le Théologien_, and _Rêve: Dieu-Moi_; there is the _Songe d'un Quart d'Heure_, divided into minutes; there is the very lengthy criticism of _Bernardin de Saint-Pierre_; there is the _Confutation d'une Censure indiscrète qu'on lit dans la Gazette de Iéna, 19 Juin 1789_; with another large manuscript, unfortunately imperfect, first called _L'Insulte_, and then _Placet au Public_, dated 'Dux, this 2nd March, 1790,' referring to the same criticism on the _Icosameron_ and the _Fuite des Prisons_. _L'Histoire de ma Fuite des Prisons de la République de Venise, qu'on appelle les Plombs_, which is the first draft of the most famous part of the _Memoirs_, was published at Leipzig in 1788; and, having read it in the Marcian Library at Venice, I am not surprised to learn from this indignant document that it was printed 'under the care of a young Swiss, who had the talent to commit a hundred faults of orthography.'