



Produced by David Widger








THE MEMOIRS
OF
JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT

1725-1798



THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TO WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.

[Transcriber's Note: These memoires were not written for children, they may outrage readers also offended by Chaucer, La Fontaine, Rabelais and The Old Testament. D.W.]



ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE



	CONTENTS


	CASANOVA AT DUX

	TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

	AUTHOR'S PREFACE


	THE MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA


	VENETIAN YEARS


	EPISODE 1 -- CHILDHOOD

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III

	CHAPTER IV

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI

	CHAPTER VII


	EPISODE 2 -- CLERIC IN NAPLES

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII


	EPISODE 3 -- MILITARY CAREER

	CHAPTER XIII

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV


	EPISODE 4 -- RETURN TO VENICE

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII

	CHAPTER XVIII

	CHAPTER XIX


	EPISODE 5 -- MILAN AND MANTUA

	CHAPTER XX

	CHAPTER XXI

	CHAPTER XXII

	CHAPTER XXIII


	ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE
TO PARIS AND PRISON


	EPISODE 6 -- PARIS

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III

	CHAPTER IV

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI

	CHAPTER VII

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX


	EPISODE 7 -- VENICE

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII

	CHAPTER XIII

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV


	EPISODE 8 -- CONVENT AFFAIRS

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII

	CHAPTER XVIII

	CHAPTER XIX

	CHAPTER XX


	EPISODE 9 -- THE FALSE NUN

	CHAPTER XXI

	CHAPTER XXII

	CHAPTER XXIII

	CHAPTER XXIV

	CHAPTER XXV


	EPISODE 10 -- UNDER THE LEADS

	CHAPTER XXVI

	CHAPTER XXVII

	CHAPTER XXVIII

	CHAPTER XXIX

	CHAPTER XXX

	CHAPTER XXXI

	CHAPTER XXXII


	ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE
EPISODE 11 -- PARIS AND HOLLAND

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III

	CHAPTER IV


	EPISODE 12 -- RETURN TO PARIS

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI

	CHAPTER VII

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX


	EPISODE 13 -- HOLLAND AND GERMANY

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII


	EPISODE 14 -- SWITZERLAND

	CHAPTER XIII

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII

	CHAPTER XVIII


	EPISODE 15 -- WITH VOLTAIRE

	CHAPTER XIX

	CHAPTER XX

	CHAPTER XXI


	ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE
ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH


	EPISODE 16 -- DEPART SWITZERLAND

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III


	EPISODE 17 -- RETURN TO ITALY

	CHAPTER IV

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI

	CHAPTER VII


	EPISODE 18--RETURN TO NAPLES

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII


	EPISODE 19 -- BACK AGAIN TO PARIS

	CHAPTER XIII

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII


	EPISODE 20 -- MILAN

	CHAPTER XVIII

	CHAPTER XIX

	CHAPTER XX

	CHAPTER XXI

	CHAPTER XXII


	ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE
VOLUME 5 -- TO LONDON AND MOSCOW


	EPISODE 21 -- SOUTH OF FRANCE

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III

	CHAPTER IV


	EPISODE 21 -- TO LONDON

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI

	CHAPTER VII

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX


	EPISODE 23--THE ENGLISH

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII

	CHAPTER XIII


	EPISODE 24 -- FLIGHT FROM LONDON TO BERLIN

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII

	CHAPTER XVIII


	EPISODE 25 -- RUSSIA AND POLAND

	CHAPTER XIX

	CHAPTER XX

	CHAPTER XXI

	CHAPTER XXII

	CHAPTER XXIII


	ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE
VOLUME 6 -- SPANISH PASSIONS


	EPISODE 26 -- SPAIN

	CHAPTER I

	CHAPTER II

	CHAPTER III

	CHAPTER IV

	CHAPTER V

	CHAPTER VI


	EPISODE 27 -- EXPELLED FROM SPAIN

	CHAPTER VII

	CHAPTER VIII

	CHAPTER IX

	CHAPTER X

	CHAPTER XI

	CHAPTER XII


	EPISODE 28 -- RETURN TO ROME

	CHAPTER XIII

	CHAPTER XIV

	CHAPTER XV

	CHAPTER XVI

	CHAPTER XVII


	EPISODE 29 -- FLORENCE TO TRIESTE

	CHAPTER XVIII

	CHAPTER XIX

	CHAPTER XX

	CHAPTER XXI

	CHAPTER XXII


	EPISODE 30 -- OLD AGE AND DEATH OF CASANOVA


	APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENT


	PART THE FIRST -- VENICE 1774-1782

	I -- CASANOVA'S RETURN TO VENICE

	II -- RELATIONS WITH THE INQUISITORS

	III -- FRANCESCA BUSCHINI

	IV -- PUBLICATIONS

	V -- MLLE---- X----... C----... V----...

	VI -- LAST DAYS AT VENICE


	PART THE SECOND -- VIENNA-PARIS

	I -- 1783-1785

	II -- PARIS

	III -- VIENNA

	IV -- LETTERS FROM FRANCESCA

	V -- LAST DAYS AT VIENNA


	PART THE THIRD -- DUX -- 1786-1798

	I -- THE CASTLE AT DUX

	II -- LETTERS FROM FRANCESCA

	III -- CORRESPONDENCE AND ACTIVITIES

	IV -- CORRESPONDENCE WITH JEAN-FERDINAND OPIZ

	V -- PUBLICATIONS

	VI -- SUMMARY of MY LIFE

	VII -- LAST DAYS AT DUX





	Illustrations


	Bookcover 1

	Titlepage 1

	Chapter 4

	Chapter 5

	Chapter 8

	Chapter 9

	Chapter 14

	Chapter 14b

	Chapter 17

	Chapter 18

	Chapter 8

	Chapter 9

	Chapter 22

	Chapter 23

	Chapter 5

	Chapter 6

	Chapter 11

	Chapter 12

	Chapter 7

	Chapter 8

	Chapter 16

	Chapter 16b

	Chapter 7

	Chapter 8

	Chapter 15

	Chapter 17

	Chapter 7

	Chapter 8

	Chapter 15

	Chapter 16










CASANOVA AT DUX

 An Unpublished Chapter of History, By Arthur Symons

 I
 The Memoirs of Casanova, though they have enjoyed the popularity of a bad reputation, have never had justice done to them by serious students of literature, of life, and of history. One English writer, indeed, Mr. Havelock Ellis, has realised that 'there are few more delightful books in the world,' and he has analysed them in an essay on Casanova, published in Affirmations, with extreme care and remarkable subtlety. But this essay stands alone, at all events in English, as an attempt to take Casanova seriously, to show him in his relation to his time, and in his relation to human problems. And yet these Memoirs are perhaps the most valuable document which we possess on the society of the eighteenth century; they are the history of a unique life, a unique personality, one of the greatest of autobiographies; as a record of adventures, they are more entertaining than Gil Blas, or Monte Cristo, or any of the imaginary travels, and escapes, and masquerades in life, which have been written in imitation of them. They tell the story of a man who loved life passionately for its own sake: one to whom woman was, indeed, the most important thing in the world, but to whom nothing in the world was indifferent. The bust which gives us the most lively notion of him shows us a great, vivid, intellectual face, full of fiery energy and calm resource, the face of a thinker and a fighter in one. A scholar, an adventurer, perhaps a Cabalist, a busy stirrer in politics, a gamester, one 'born for the fairer sex,' as he tells us, and born also to be a vagabond; this man, who is remembered now for his written account of his own life, was that rarest kind of autobiographer, one who did not live to write, but wrote because he had lived, and when he could live no longer.

And his Memoirs take one all over Europe, giving sidelights, all the more valuable in being almost accidental, upon many of the affairs and people most interesting to us during two-thirds of the eighteenth century. Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice, of Spanish and Italian parentage, on April 2, 1725; he died at the Chateau of Dux, in Bohemia, on June 4, 1798. In that lifetime of seventy-three years he travelled, as his Memoirs show us, in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Poland, Spain, Holland, Turkey; he met Voltaire at Ferney, Rousseau at Montmorency, Fontenelle, d'Alembert and Crebillon at Paris, George III. in London, Louis XV. at Fontainebleau, Catherine the Great at St. Petersburg, Benedict XII. at Rome, Joseph II. at Vienna, Frederick the Great at Sans-Souci. Imprisoned by the Inquisitors of State in the Piombi at Venice, he made, in 1755, the most famous escape in history. His Memoirs, as we have them, break off abruptly at the moment when he is expecting a safe conduct, and the permission to return to Venice after twenty years' wanderings. He did return, as we know from documents in the Venetian archives; he returned as secret agent of the Inquisitors, and remained in their service from 1774 until 1782. At the end of 1782 he left Venice; and next year we find him in Paris, where, in 1784, he met Count Waldstein at the Venetian Ambassador's, and was invited by him to become his librarian at Dux. He accepted, and for the fourteen remaining years of his life lived at Dux, where he wrote his Memoirs.

Casanova died in 1798, but nothing was heard of the Memoirs (which the Prince de Ligne, in his own Memoirs, tells us that Casanova had read to him, and in which he found 'du dyamatique, de la rapidite, du comique, de la philosophie, des choses neuves, sublimes, inimitables meme') until the year 1820, when a certain Carlo Angiolini brought to the publishing house of Brockhaus, in Leipzig, a manuscript entitled Histoire de ma vie jusqu a l'an 1797, in the handwriting of Casanova. This manuscript, which I have examined at Leipzig, is written on foolscap paper, rather rough and yellow; it is written on both sides of the page, and in sheets or quires; here and there the paging shows that some pages have been omitted, and in their place are smaller sheets of