 Casanova at Dukes, from the introduction to the memoirs of Jacques Casanova, Volume 1, by Jacques Casanova. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by IC Jumbo The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova, Volume 1, The Venetian Years, by Jacques Casanova. Casanova at Dukes, an unpublished chapter of history by Arthur Simons. Part 1 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. Havelok 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 18th 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 gangster, one born of 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 side-lights 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 Cassanova 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 Saint-Soussi. Imprisoned by the Inquisitor's estate in the Pionbi 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 Valstine at the Venetian ambassadors, 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 lignes, in his own memoirs, tells us that Casanova had read to him, and in which he found de la rapidité, du comique, de la philosophie, des choses neuves, sublime, inimitable, même. Until the year 1820, when a certain Carlo Angiolini brought to the publishing house of Brock House, in Leipzig, a manuscript entitled Histoire de ma vie jusqu'à l'an 1797, in the handwriting of Casanova. This manuscript, which I have examined at Leipzig, is written on full-scat paper, rather rough and yellow. It is written on both sides of the page, and in sheets or choirs. Here and there the paging shows that some pages have been omitted, and in their place are smaller sheets of thinner and whiter paper, all in Casanova's handsome, unmistakable handwriting. The manuscript is done up in twelve bundles, corresponding with the twelve volumes of the original edition, and only in one place is there a gap. The fourth and fifth chapters of the twelfth volume are missing, as the editor of the original edition points out, adding, It is not probable that these two chapters have been withdrawn from the manuscript of Casanova by a strange hand. Everything leads us to believe that the author himself suppressed them in the intention, no doubt, of rewriting them, but without having found time to do so. The manuscript ends abruptly with the year 1774 and not with the year 1797, as the title would lead us to suppose. This manuscript, in its original state, has never been printed. Herr Brockhaus, on obtaining possession of the manuscript, had it translated into German by Wilhelm Schutz, but with many omissions and alterations, and published this translation, volume by volume, from 1822 to 1828, under the title Ausdein Memoeren des Venetianes Jakob Casanova des Seingalt. While the German edition was in course of publication, Herr Brockhaus employed a certain Jean La Thaug, a professor of the French language at Dresden, to revise the original manuscript, correcting Casanova's vigorous but at times incorrect and somewhat Italian French, according to his own notions of elegant writing, suppressing passages which seemed too free-spoken from the point of view of morals and of politics, and altering the names of some of the persons referred to, or replacing those names by initials. This revised text was published in twelve volumes, the first two in 1826, the third and fourth in 1828, the fifth to the eighth in 1832, and the ninth to the twelfth in 1837, the first four bearing the imprint of Brockhaus at Leipzig and Pontier Essie at Paris, the next four the imprint of Heidelhoff et Compe at Paris, and the last four nothing but Abrussell. The volumes are all uniform and were all really printed for the firm of Brockhaus. This, however far from representing the real text, is the only authoritative edition, and my references throughout this article will always be to this edition. In turning over the manuscript at Leipzig, I read some of the suppressed passages and regretted their suppression. But Herr Brockhaus, the present head of the firm, assured me that they are not really very considerable in number. The damage, however, to the vivacity of the whole narrative by the persistent alterations of M. LaForgue is incalculable. I compared many passages and found scarcely three consecutive sentences untouched. Herr Brockhaus, whose courtesy I cannot sufficiently acknowledge, was kind enough to have a passage copied out for me, which I afterwards read over and checked word by word. In this passage, Casanova says, for instance, Elle venoir presque tous les jours lui faire une belle visite. This is altered into, cependant chaque jour Thérèse venait lui faire une visite. Casanova says that someone avoir comme de raison forme le projet d'allié Dieu avec le diable. This is made to read, qui, comme de raison, avait sentiment formé le projet d'allié les intérêts du ciel aux œuvres de ce monde. Casanova tells us that Thérèse would not commit a mortal sin pour devenir rien du monde, pour une couronne, correcte the indefatigable LaForgue. Il ne savoir que lui dire, becomes dans cet état de perplexité, and so forth. It must therefore be realised that the memoirs, as we have them, are only a kind of pale tracing of the vivid colours of the original. When Casanova's memoirs were first published, doubts were expressed as to their authenticity, first by Hugo Foscolo in the Westminster Review, 1827, then by Kérard, supposed to be an authority in regard to anonymous and pseudonymous writings, finally by Paul Lacroix, the bibliophile Jacob, who suggested, or rather expressed, his certainty that the real author of the memoirs was Chdontal, whose mind, character, ideas and style he seemed to recognise on every page. This theory, as foolish and as unsupported as the Baconian theory of Shakespeare, has been carelessly accepted, or at all events accepted as possible, by many good scholars who have never taken the trouble to look into the matter for themselves. It was finally disproved by a series of articles of Armand Bâché, entitled Preuve Curieuse de l'authenticité des mémoires de Jacques Casanova de Singart, in Le Livre, January, February, April and May, 1881, and these proofs were further corroborated by two articles of Alessandro D'Ancona, entitled Navonturriere del Zécolo di Ciotto, in the Nuovo Antologia, February the 1st and August the 1st, 1882. Bâché had never himself seen the manuscript of the memoir, but he had learnt all the facts about it from Messers Brockhouse, and he had himself examined the numerous papers relating to Casanova in the Venetian archives. A similar examination was made at the Frari, at the same time by the Abbe Fulin, and I myself, in 1894, not knowing at the time that the discovery had been already made, made it over again for myself. There, the arrest of Casanova, his imprisonment in the Pionbi, the exact date of his escape, the name of the monk who accompanied him, are all authenticated by documents contained in the riferte of the Inquisition of State. There are the bills for the repairs of the roof and walls of the cell from which he escaped. There are the reports of spies on whose information he was arrested for his too dangerous free-spokenness in matters of religion and morality. The same archives contain forty-eight letters of Casanova to the Inquisitors of State, dating from 1763 to 1782, among the riferte de Confidenti, or the reports of the secret agents. The earliest asking permission to return to Venice, the rest giving information in regard to the immoralities of the city after his return there, all in the same handwriting as the memoirs. Further proof could scarcely be needed, but Bache has done more than prove the authenticity. He has proved the extra-ordinary veracity of the memoirs. F. W. Bartolt in Die Geschichtlichen Personnlichkeiten in J. Casanova's Memoeren, two volumes, 1846, had already examined about a hundred of Casanova's illusions to well-known people, showing the perfect exactitude of all but six or seven, and out of the six or seven inexactitudes ascribing only a single one to the author's intention. Bache and Dancona both carry on what Bartolt had begun. Other investigators in France, Italy and Germany have followed them, and two things are now certain. First, that Casanova himself wrote the memoirs published under his name, though not textually in the precise form in which we have them, and second, that as their veracity becomes more and more evident, they are confronted with more and more independent witnesses. It is only fair to suppose that they are equally truthful where the facts or such as could only have been known to Casanova himself. For more than two-thirds of a century it has been known that Casanova spent the last fourteen years of his life at Dukes, 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 anyone 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 Dukes 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 Valtstein in September 1899 to be the first to discover the most interesting things contained in these manuscripts. Monsieur Octave Uzzan, though he had not himself visited Dukes, 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 became 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 Dukes, nor has an account of them ever been given by anyone 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 Dukes, and in 1899, when I was staying with Count Lutzau at Zampach in Bohemia, I found the way kindly opened for me. Count Valtstein, 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 Dukes. 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 Oberleutendorf, a smaller schloss near Komotau, where the Valtstein 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 Dukes was like a triumphal entry as we dashed through the marketplace filled with people come for the Monday market. Hots 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, contained some twenty-five thousand volumes, some of them of considerable value. One of the most famous books in Bohemian literature, Scala'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 armory 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 Valstein 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 bookshelves are painted white and reach to the low-volted ceilings, which are whitewashed. 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 Valstein's study, and left there with the manuscripts. I found six huge cardboard cases, large enough to contain full-scap paper, lettered on the back, Grafl, Valstein-Wartenburgersche, Real, Fideikommis, Dux Oberleutendorf, Hans Schriftlicher, Nachlas 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 francise, with reasons for and against, what I must wear at Dresden, headings without anything to follow, such as reflections 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 37th Balloon Ascent of Blanchard, thanks to some noble donor for the gift of a dog called Finet, a passport for Monsieur de Casanova, Venetien, alland ici, on Hollande, October 13th, 1758, ce passeport bonne pour quinze jours, together with an order for post-horses, gratis from Paris to Bordeaux and Bayonne. 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 Romans. 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 guild the pill is a positive impertinence, and Monsieur Baye is nothing but a charlatan. The monarch ought to have spit in his face, but the monarch trembled with fear. A manuscript entitled Essay d'Egoïsme, 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 tranquilise for six months two Jew creditors at Prague. Another manuscript is headed Pride and Folly, and begins with a long series of antithesis, 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 dystic 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 dystic, for there are extraordinary people in the world. My brother, in short, ought to have composed the dystic, because he says so, and because he confided it to me tet-a-tet. 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 in these casual jottings. Often they are purely abstract, at times metaphysical je le spris, 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, Lyre voluptueur. 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 Lecocese was a bad translation. It is pecan 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 prosolites to impiety, Voltaire is not ashamed, being reduced to the extremity of life, to ask for the sacraments, and to cover his body with more relics than Saint Louis had at Ombois. 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 aesthetical matters, as in a fragment which begins with this liberal definition of beauty. Harmony makes beauty, as Monsieur de S.P., Bernardin de Saint-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 downstairs, that Madame de Rosenberg was dead, and asked me if the Court de Valtstein had in the library the illustration of the villa d'Alte-Chiereau, 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 Monsignor? It is not a secret. Is His Majesty coming to Dux? If he goes to the Oberleitensdorf, sick, 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 Prince. 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 then 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 of 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 Rowland and some adventure with women in a cave, then a meditation on a rising from sleep 19 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 13 October 1793, day dedicated to St. Lucie, 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. See Charles Henry Les Connaissantes Mathématiques de Casanova, Rome 1883. 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 plaisir, sans silence point de mystère, Charme divin de mes loisirs, solitude que tu m'échères. 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 Inotavarima, published in Venice 1775-8, of the Histoire de Venise, of the Icosmeron, a curious book published in 1787, purporting to be translated from the English, but really an original work of Casanova. Fi Locali Sur les sorties des mortels, a long manuscript never published, the sketch and beginning of Le Pôle Marc, où la calomnie démasquée par la présence d'esprit, tragico-médies en trois actes composées à Dux dans le mois de juin de l'année 1791, which recurs again under the form of the polemoscope, la lourniète montaise, où la calomnie démasquée acted before the princess de ligne, at her château at Teplitz, 1791. There is a treatise in Italian d'Elle passioni. There are long dialogues such as Le Philosophe Theologian 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 indiscrete qu'on lit dans la gazette de Yéna, 19 juin 1789. With another large manuscript, unfortunately imperfect, first called L'insulte and then Place au public, dated Dux, the 2nd of March 1790, referring to the same criticism on the Icosomeron and the Fruit des Prisons, l'histoire de ma Fruit 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 and 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. Section 3 We now come to the documents directly relating to the memoirs and among these are several attempts at a preface in which we see the actual preface coming gradually into form. One is entitled Casanova au lecteur, another Histoire de mon existence and a third, preface. There is also a brief and characteristic Précis de ma vie dated November 17, 1797. Some of these have been printed in Le Livre, 1887, but by far the most important manuscript that I discovered, one which, apparently, I am the first to discover, is a manuscript entitled Extrait du chapitre quatre et cinq. It is written on paper similar to that on which the memoirs are written. The pages are numbered 104 to 148 and, though it is described as Extrait, it seems to contain at all events the greater part of the missing chapters to which I have already referred, chapters 4 and 5 of the last volume of the memoirs. In this manuscript we find Armaline and Scolastica, whose story is interrupted by the abrupt ending of chapter 3. We find Marie-Yucha of volume 7, chapter 9, whom married a hairdresser and we find also Jacqueline, whom Casanova recognizes as his daughter, much prettier than Sophia, the daughter of Maria's pompiati, whom I had left at London. It is curious that this very important manuscript, which supplies the one missing link in the memoirs should never have been discovered by any of the very few people who have had the opportunity of looking over the duke's manuscripts. I am inclined to explain it by the fact that the case in which I found this manuscript contains some papers not relating to Casanova. Probably, those who looked into this case looked no further. I have told Hare Brockhouse of my discovery, and I hope to see chapters 4 and 5 in their places when the long-looked-for edition of the complete text is at length given to the world. Another manuscript which I found tells with great piquancy the whole story of the Abbey de Brosse's ointment, the curing of the princess de Conte's pimples, and the birth of the duke de Mont-Poncier, which is told very briefly and with much less point in the memoirs, volume 3, page 327. Readers of the memoirs will remember the duel at Warsaw with Count Bruniki in 1766, volume 10, pages 274 to 320. An affair which attracted a good deal of attention at the time, and of which there is an account in a letter from the Abbey Tarufy to the dramatist Francesco Albegati dated Warsaw March 19, 1766, quoted in Ernesto Marzi's Life of Albegati, Bologna 1878. A manuscript at Dux in Casanova's handwriting gives an account of this duel in the third person. It is entitled description de l'affaire arrivée à Warsaw vie le 5 mars 1766. Dancona in the Nuova antologia volume 67, page 412 referring to the Abbey Tarufy's account mentions what he considers to be a slight discrepancy that Tarufy refers to the dancers about whom the duel was fought as La Cassacci while Casanova refers to as La Cataille. In this manuscript Casanova always refers to her as La Cassacci. La Cataille is evidently one of Monsieur La Forg's arbitrary alterations of the text. In turning over another manuscript I was caught by the name Chapeyong which every reader of the memoirs will remember as the name of the Harpy by whom Casanova suffered so much in London in 1763 to 4. This manuscript begins by saying I have been in London for six months and have been to see them that is the mother and daughter in their own house where he finds nothing but swindlers who cause all who go there to lose their money in gambling. This manuscript adds some details to the story told in the 9th and 10th volumes of the memoirs and refers to the meeting with the Chapeyong four and a half years before described in volume 5 pages 428 to 485. It is written in a tone of great indignation. Elsewhere I found a letter written by Casanova but not signed referring to an anonymous letter which he had received in reference to the Chapeyong and ending my handwriting is known. It was not until the last that I came upon great bundles of letters addressed to Casanova and so carefully preserved that little scraps of paper that the post-cripts are written are still in their places. One sees the seals on the backs of many of the letters on paper which are slightly yellowed with age, leaving the ink however almost always fresh. They come from Venice, Paris, Rome, Prague, Bayreuth, The Hague, Genoa, Fiume, Trieste etc. and are addressed to as many places often post-restante. Many are letters from women, some in beautiful handwriting on thick paper, others on scraps of paper in painful hands ill-spelled. A countess writes pitifully imploring help. One protests her love in spite of the many chagrin he has caused her. Another asks how they are to live together and another laments that a report has gone about that she is secretly living with him which may harm his reputation. Some are in French more in Italian. Mon cher Giacometto writes one woman in French. Carissimo a amatissimo writes another in Italian. These letters from women are in some confusion and are in need of a good deal of sorting over and rearranging before their full extent can be realised. Thus I found letters in the same handwriting separated by letters in other hand-writings. Many are unsigned or signed only by a single initial. Many are undated or dated only with the day of the week or month. There are a great many letters dating from 1779 to 1786 signed Francesca Buccini a name which I cannot identify. They are written in Italian and one of them begins Unico mio vero amico my only true friend. Others are signed Virginia B one of these is dated forlì October the 15th 1773 There is also a Teresa B who writes from Genoa. I was at first unable to identify the writer of a whole series of letters in French very affectionate and intimate letters usually unsigned occasionally signed B She calls herself votre petit ami or she ends with a half-smiling half reproachful good night and sleep better than I. In one letter sent from Paris in 1759 she writes never believe me but when I tell you that I love you and that I shall love you always in another letter ill-spelled as her letters often are she writes be assured that evil tongues, vapours, calamity, nothing can change my heart which is yours entirely and has no will to change its master Now it seems to me that these letters must be from Manon Balletti and that they are the letters referred to in the sixth volume of the memoirs We read there, page 60 how on Christmas Day 1759 Casanova receives a letter from Manon in Paris announcing her marriage with Monsieur Blondel, architect of the king and member of his academy She returns him his letters and begs him to return hers or burn them Instead of doing so he allows Esther to read them intending to burn them afterwards Esther begs to be allowed to keep the letters promising to preserve them religiously all her life These letters, he says numbered more than 200 and the shortest were of four pages Certainly there are not 200 of them at Dux but it seems to me highly probable that Casanova made a final selection from Manon's letters and it is these which I have found But, however this may be I was fortunate enough to find the set of letters which I was most anxious to find the letters from Henriette whose loss every writer on Casanova has lamented Henriette, it will be remembered makes her first appearance at Chessena in the year 1748 After their meeting at Geneva she reappears romantically apropos 22 years later at Ex en Provence and she writes to Casanova proposing un commerce epistolaire asking him what he has done since his escape from prison and promising to her best to tell him all that has happened to her during the long interval After quoting her letter he adds I replied to her accepting the correspondence that she offered me for briefly all my vicissitudes She related to me in turn in some forty letters all the history of her life If she dies before me I shall add these letters to these memoirs but today she is still alive and always happy though now old It has never been known what became of these letters and why they were not added to the memoirs I have found a great quantity of them some signed with her married name in full Henriette de Schnetzmann and I am inclined to think that she survived Casanova for one of the letters is dated by Reut 1798 the year of Casanova's death They are remarkably charming written with a mixture of piquancy and distinction and I will quote the characteristic beginning and end of the last letter I was able to find It begins No, it is impossible to be sulky with you and ends If I become vicious it is you, my mentor, who make me so and I cast my sins upon you Even if I were damned I should still be your most devoted friend Henriette de Schnetzmann Casanova was 23 when he met Henriette Now herself an old woman she writes to him when he is 73 as if the fifty years that had passed were blotted out in the faithful affection of her memory How many more discreet and less changing lovers have had the quality of constancy in change to which this life-long correspondence bears witness Does it not suggest a view of Casanova not quite the view of all the world? To me it shows the real man who perhaps of all others best understood what Shelly meant when he said True love in this differs from gold or clay that to divide is not to take away But though the letters from women naturally interested me the most they were only a certain proportion of the great mass of correspondence which I turned over There were letters from Carlo Angiolini who was afterwards to bring the manuscript of the memoirs to Brockhouse from Balbi, the monk with whom Casanova escaped from the Pionbi from the Marqui Galbegati playwright, actor and eccentric of whom Casanova escaped from the Pionbi from the Marqui Galbegati playwright, actor and eccentric of whom there is some account in the memoirs from the Marqui Mosca a distinguished man of letters who I was anxious to see Casanova tells us in the same volume in which he describes his visit to the Mosca's at Pesaro from Zulian, the brother of the Duchess of Fiano from Richard Lorraine bel homme ayant de l'esprit le temps et le goût de la bonne société who came to settle at Gorizia in 1773 while Casanova was there from the procurator Morosini whom he speaks of in the memoirs as his protector and as one of those through whom he obtained permission to return to Venice his other protector the avogador Zaguri had says Casanova since the affair of the Marqui Galbegati carried on a most interesting correspondence with me I found a bundle of no less than 138 letters from him dating from 1784 to 1798 another bundle contains 172 letters from Count Lomberg in the memoirs Casanova says referring to his visit at Augsburg at the end of 1761 I used to spend my evenings in a very agreeable manner at the house of Count Max de Lomberg who resided at the court with the title of Grand Marshal what particularly attached me to Count Lomberg was his literary talent a first rate scholar learned to a degree he has published several much esteemed works I carried on an exchange of letters with him which ended only with his death four years ago in 1792 Casanova tells us that at his second visit to Augsburg in the early part of 1767 he sucked with Count Lomberg two or three times a week during the four months he was there it is with this year that the letters I have found begin they end with the year of his death 1792 in his Memorial d'un Mondein Lomberg refers to Casanova as a man known in literature a man of profound knowledge in the first edition of 1774 he laments that a man such as Monsieur de S. Gault should not yet have been taken back into favour by the Venetian Government and in the second edition 1775 rejoices over Casanova's return to Venice then there are letters from D'Aponte who tells the story of Casanova's curious relations with Madame D'Orfe in his Memoriae Scrite da Essos 1829 from Petone others mentioned in different parts of the Memoirs and from some dozen others who are not mentioned in them the only letters in the whole collection that have been published are those from the Prastilinha and from Count Koenig section 4 Casanova tells us in his Memoirs that during his later years at Dux he had only been able to hinder black melancholy from devouring his poor existence or sending him out of his mind by writing ten or twelve hours a day the copious manuscripts at Dux show us how persistently he was at work on a singular variety of subjects in addition to the Memoirs and to the various books which he published during those years we see him jotting down everything that comes into his head for his own amusement and certainly without any thought of publication engaging in learned controversies writing treatisees on abstruse mathematical problems composing comedies to be acted before Count Valtstein's neighbours practicing verse writing in two languages indeed with more patience than success writing philosophical dialogues in which God and himself are the speakers and keeping up an extensive correspondence both with distinguished men and with delightful women his mental activity up to the age of seventy-three is as prodigious as the activity which he had expended in living a multi-form and incalculable life as in life everything living had interested him so in his retirement from life every idea makes it separate appeal to him and he welcomes ideas with the same impartiality with which he had welcomed adventures passion has intellectualised itself and remains not less passionate he wishes to do everything to compete with everyone and it is only after having spent seven years in heaping up miscellaneous learning and exercising his faculties in many directions that he turns to look back over his own past life and to live it over again in memory as he writes down the narrative of what had interested him most in it I write in the hope that my history will never see the broad daylight of publication that tells us scarcely meaning it we may be sure even in the moment of hesitancy which may naturally come to him but if ever a book was written for the pleasure of writing it it was this one and an autobiography written for oneself is not likely to be anything but frank truth is the only god I have ever adored he tells us and we now know how truthful he was in saying so in this article the most important confirmations of his exact accuracy in facts and dates the number could be extended indefinitely in the manuscripts we find innumerable further confirmations and their chief value as testimony is that they tell us nothing which we should not already have known if we had merely taken Casanova at his word but it is not always easy to take people at their own word writing about themselves and the world has been very loath to believe in Casanova as he represents himself it has been specially loath to believe that he is telling the truth when he tells us about his adventures with women but the letters contained among these manuscripts show us the women of Casanova writing to him with all the fervour and all the fidelity which he attributes to them and they show him to us in the character of as fervid and faithful a lover in every fact every detail and in the whole mental impression which they convey these manuscripts bring before us the Casanova of the memoirs as I seemed to come upon Casanova at home it was as if I came upon old friend already perfectly known to me before I had made my pilgrimage to Dux 1902 End of Casanova at Dux Recording by Icy Jumbo Translators Preface The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova Volume 1 by Jacomo Casanova This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Melody Martinez Translators Preface The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova Volume 1 The Venetian Years by Jacomo Casanova Translators Preface A series of adventures wilder and more fantastic than the wildest of romances written down with the exactitude of a business diary a view of men and cities from Naples to Berlin from Madrid and London to Constantinople and St. Petersburg The Vien team of the 18th century depicted by a man who today sat with cardinals and saluted crowned heads and tomorrow lurked in dens of profligacy and crime a book of confession penned without reticence and without penitence a record of 40 years of occult charlatanism a collection of tales of successful imposture of bon fortune of marvelous escapes of transcendent audacity told with the humor of Smollett and the delicate wit of Voltaire Who is there interested in men and letters and in the life of the past who would not cry where can such a book as this be found? Yet the above catalogue is but a brief outline a bear and meager summary of the book known as The Memoirs of Casanova a work absolutely unique in literature he who opens these wonderful pages is as one who sits in a theater and looks across the gloom not on a stage play but on another and a vanished world the curtain draws up and suddenly 150 years are rolled away and in two years are rolled away and in bright light stands out before us the whole life of the past the gay dresses the polished wit the careless morals and all the revel and dancing of those merry years before the mighty deluge of the revolution the palaces and marble stairs of old Venice are no longer desolate but thronged with scarlet-robed senators prisoners with the doom of the ten upon their heads cross the bridge of sighs at dead of night the nun slips out of the convent gate to the dark canal where gondola is waiting we assist at the party's finds of cardinals and we see the bank made at ferro Venice gives place to the assembly rooms of Mrs. Cornely and the fast taverns of the London of 1760 we pass from Versailles to the winter palace of St. Petersburg in the day of Catherine from the policy of the great Frederick to the lewd mirth of the strolling players and the presence chamber of the Vatican is succeeded by an intrigue in a garret it is indeed a new experience to read this history of a man who refraining from nothing has concealed nothing of the man who stood in the courts of Louis the Magnificent before Madame de Pompadour and of the nobles of the Ancien regime and had an affair with an adventurous of Denmark street Soho and was bound over to keep the peace by fielding and new cagliostro the friend of popes and kings and noblemen and of all the male and female ruffians and vagabonds of Europe Abbey, soldier gelatin, gamester financier diplomatist vivior philosopher virtuoso chemist, fiddler, and buffoon each of these and all of these was Jacomo Casanova chevalier, desingold knight of the golden spur and not only are the memoirs a literary curiosity almost equally curious from a bibliographical point of view The manuscript was written in French and came into the possession of the publisher Brockhaus of Lipsig who had it translated into German and printed from this German edition M. Aubert de Vietrie retranslated the work into French but omitted about a fourth of the matter and this mutilated and worthless version was subsequently purchased by unwary bibliophiles in the year 1826 however Brockhaus in order presumably to protect his property printed the entire text of the original manuscript in French for the first time and in this complete form containing a large number of anecdotes and incidents not to be found in the spurious version the work was not acceptable to the authorities and was consequently rigorously depressed only a few copies sent out for presentation or for review are known to have escaped and from one of these rare copies the present translation has been made and solely for private circulation in conclusion both translator and editor have done their utmost to present the English Casanova in a dress worthy of the wonderful and witty original and of translator's preface author's preface of the memoirs of Jack's Casanova Volume 1 by Jacobo Casanova this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ashwin Jain the memoirs of Jack's Casanova Volume 1 The Venetian Years by Jacobo Casanova author's preface I will begin with this confession whatever I have done in the course of my life whether it be good or evil has been done feeling I am a free agent the doctrine of the stoics or of any other sect as to the force of destiny is bubble engendered by the imagination of man and is near akin to a theism I not only believe in one God but my faith as a Christian is also grafted upon that tree of philosophy which has never spoiled anything I believe in the existence of an immaterial God the author a master of all beings in all things and I feel that I never had any doubt of his existence from the fact that I have always relied upon his providence prayed to him in my distress and that he has always granted my prayers despair brings death but prayer does away with despair and when a man has prayed he feels himself employed by the sovereign master of human beings to avoid impending dangers for those who beseech his assistants I confess that the knowledge of them is above the intelligence of man who can but wonder and adore our ignorance becomes our only resource and happy truly happy are those who cherish their ignorance therefore must we pray to God and believe that he has granted the favor we have been praying for even when in appearance because as to the position which our body ought to assume when we address ourselves to the Creator a line of Petrage settles it man is free but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it and the greater power he ascribes to faith the more he deprives himself of that power God has given to him when he endured him with a gift of reason reason is a particle of the creator's divinity when we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain to please the giver of that precious gift God sees this to be God only for those who can admit the possibility of his non-existence and that conception is in itself the most severe punishment man is free yet we must not suppose that he is at a liberty to do everything he pleases for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion the man with sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance man but such beings are seldom met with the reader of these memoirs will discover that I have never had any fixed aim before my eyes and that my system if it can be called a system has been to glide away unconcentrately on the stream of life trusting to the wind wherever it led how many changes arise from such an independent mode of life my success and my misfortunes the bright and the dark days I have gone through everything has provided to me that in this world either physical or moral good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of the world my errors will point to thanking men the various roads and will teach them the art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it it is only necessary to have courage for strength without self-confidence is useless I have often met with happiness after an imprudent step which ought to have brought rule upon me and although passing a vote of censure upon myself for his mercy but by way of compensation Diane's misfortune has befallen me in consequence of actions prompted by the most cautious system this would humble me yet conscious that I had acted rightfully I would easily derive comfort from that conviction in spite of a good foundation of sound morals the future offspring of the divine principles which have been early rooted in my heart I have been throughout my life the victim of my senses I have found delight in losing the right path I have constantly lived in a mist of error with no consolation but the consciousness of my being mistaken therefore dear reader enough from attaching to my history the character of imprudent posting will find in my memoirs only the characteristic proper to a general confession and at my ethnically style will be the manner neither of a repenting sinner nor of a man ashamed to acknowledge his follics they are the follies inherent to youth I may export of them and if you are kind you will not yourself refuse them a good-natured smile you will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest form of conscience both navels and fools and to the deceit perpetrated upon women let it pass for when love is in the way men and women in general rule dupe each other but on the score of fools it is a very different manner I always feel the greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares for they generally are insolent and so self-conceited that they challenge it we avenge intellect when we dupe a fool and it is our victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part in fact to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man I have felt in my very blood ever since I was born a most unconquerable hatred towards the whole tribe of fools and it arises from the fact that I feel myself a blockhead whenever I am in their company I am very far from placing them in the same class with those men whom we call stupid for the latter as stupid only from deficient education and I rather like them I have met with some of them very honest fellows who with all the stupidity have a kind of intelligence and a kind of intelligence and an upright good sense which cannot be the characteristics of fools they are like eyes wailed with cataract which if the disease could be removed would be very beautiful dear reader examine the spirit of this preface and you will I do once guess at my purpose I have written a preface because I wish you to know me thoroughly before you begin the reading of my memoirs it is only in a coffee room or at a table they hope that we like to converse with strangers I have written the history of my life and I have a perfect right to do so but am I wise in throwing it before a public of which I know nothing but evil no I am aware it is sheer folly but I want to be busy I want to laugh and why should I deny myself this gratification ex pulit laburo morbum velem chu meru an ancient author tells us somewhere with the tone of a pedagogue if you have ever not done anything worthy of being recorded at least write something worthy worthy of being read it is a percept as beautiful as a diamond or the first water cut in England but cannot be applied to me because I have not written either a novel or the life of an illustrious character worthy or not my life is my subject and my subject is my life I have lived without dreaming but I should ever take a fancy to write the history of my life and for that very reason when I was claimed from the reader an interest and a sympathy which they would not have obtained and I always entertained the design to write them in my old age and still more to publish them I have reached in 1797 the age of 3 school years in 12 I cannot say wixie and I could not procure a more agreeable fast time than to relate my own adventures and to cause pleasant laughter amongst the good company listening to me from which I have received so many tokens of friendship in the midst of which I have ever lived to NMLB to write well I have only to think that my readers will belong to that polite society few sank tixie see resurrent tiktavet auditor should there be a few intruders whom I cannot prevent from pursuing my memoirs I must find comfort in the idea that my history was not written for them by recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly I renew them I enjoy them a second time while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now passed and which I no longer feel a member of this great universe I speak to the air and I fancy myself rendering an account of my administration as a steward is born to do before leaving the situation for my future I have no concern and as a true philosopher I never would have any for I know not what it may be as a Christian on the other hand faith must be lived without discussion and the stronger it is the more it keeps silent I know that I have lived because I have felt and feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence I know likewise that I shall exist no more when I shall have cease to feel should I per chance still feel after my death I would no longer have any doubt but I would most certainly give it the life to anyone asserting before me that I was dead the history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of 8 years and 4 months before that time if to think is to live to be a true asian I did not live I could only lay claim to a state of agitation the mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory the mnemonic organ was developed in my head only 8 years and 4 months after my birth it is then that my soul began to be susceptible of receiving impressions how is it possible for an immaterial substance which can neither touch to receive impressions it is a mystery which man cannot unravel in a certain philosophy full of consolation an imperfect accord with religion pretends that the state of dependence in which the soul stands in relation to the senses and to the organs is only incidental and transcendent and that it will reach a condition of freedom and happiness when the death of the body shall have delivered it from the state of tyrannic subjection this is very fine but apart from religion which is the proof of it all therefore as I cannot from my own information have a perfect certainty of being immortal until the dissolution of my body has actually taken place people must kindly bear with me if I am in no hurry to obtain their certain knowledge for in my estimation a knowledge to be gained at the cost of life is a rather expensive piece of information in the meantime I worship God and in every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury I only abstain from doing them any good in the full belief that we ought not to cherish serpents as I most likewise say a few words respecting my nature and my temperament I promise the most indulgent of my readers is not likely to be the most dishonest or the least gifted with intelligence I have had in turn every temperament phlegmatic in my infancy sanguine in my youth later on bilious and now I have a disposition which engenders melancholy and most likely will never change I always made my food congenial to my constitution and my health was always excellent I learned very early that our health is always impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence and I never had any physician except myself I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much the last may cause indigestion but the first cause is death old as I am and although enjoying good digestive organs I must have only one meal every day but I find a set off to the privation in my delightful sleep and in the ease which I experience in writing down my thoughts without having to cause to paradox or sophism I calculated to deceive myself even more than my readers but I never could make up my mind to pump counterfeit coin up on them if I knew it to be such the sanguine thing from it rendered me very sensible to the attractions of voluptuousness I always very cheerful and ever ready to pass from one enjoyment to another and I was at the same time very skillful in inventing new players then I suppose my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances and to break with them so readily although always for a good reason and never through mere fickleness the errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected because our temperament is perfectly independent of our strength it is not the case with our character heart and head are the constituent parts of the character temperament has almost nothing to do with it and therefore character is dependent on education and is susceptible of being corrected and improved I leave to others a decision as to the good or evil tendencies of my character but such as it is it shines upon my countenance and there it can be easily detected by any physiognomist it is only on the fact that character can be read there it lies exposed to the view it is worthy of remark that men who have no peculiar cast of countenance and there are a great many of such men are likewise totally deficient in peculiar characteristics and we may establish the rule that the varieties in physiognomy are equal to the differences in character I am aware that throughout my life my actions have received their impulse more from force of feeling and this has led me to acknowledge that my conduct has been dependent upon my nature more than upon my mind both are generally at war in the midst of their continual collisions I have never found in me sufficient mind to balance my nature or enough strength in my nature to counteract the power of my mind but enough of this for there is truth in the old saying see bravice as a vollo obscure as few and I believe that without offending against modesty I can apply to myself the following words of my dear Virgil nexum adeo informis nupe me in le tore vidi cum placidum entis terith mare the chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses I never knew anything of great importance I felt myself born for the failed sex I have ever loved it dearly and I have been loved by it as often as much as I could I have likewise always had a great weakness for good living and I ever felt passionately fond of every object which excited my curiosity I have had friends who have acted kindly towards me and it has been my good fortune to have it in my power to give them substantial proofs of my gratitude I have had also bitter enemies who have persecuted me in whom I have not crashed simply because I could not do it I never would have forgiven them had I not lost the memory of all the injuries they had heaped upon me the man who forgets does not forgive he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him forgiveness is a off-screen of a feeling of heroism of a noble heart of a generous mind which forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory or of an easy carelessness and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness hatred in the course of time feels the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom shouldn't even bring against me an accusation of sensuality who would be wrong for all the fierceness of my senses never cost me to neglect any of my duties for the same excellent reason the accusation of drunkenness of not to be brought against Homer Lordy Bluss Aguthur Vinousus Homerus I have always been fond of highly seasoned, rich dishes such as Marconi prepared by skillful Napoleon Cook and the Ola Padrita of Spaniards the gluttonous codfish from Newfoundland game with a strong flavor and cheese the perfect state of which is attained with a tiny immaculate formed with its very essence begin to shoe size of life and as for women I have always found the odor of my beloved ones exceeding pleasant what depraved taste some people will exclaim are you not ashamed to confess such inclinations without blushing my dear critics you make me laugh heartily thanks to my co-states I believe myself happier than other men because I am convinced that they enhance my enjoyment happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without injury to anyone insane are those who fancy that the almighty can enjoy the sufferings the pains the fast and abstinences which attacks themselves so foolishly God can only demand from his creatures the practice of virtues the seed of which he has sown in their soul and all he has given unto us has been intended for our happiness self love thirst for praise emulation strength courage and a power of which nothing can deprives the power of self destruction if after due calculation whether false or just we unfortunately reckoned death to be advantageous this is the strongest proof of our moral freedom so much attacked by a surface yet this power of self destruction is repugnant to nature and has been rightly opposed by every religion a so called free thinker told me at one time that I could not consider myself a philosopher if I have placed any faith in revelation but when we accept it readily in physics why should we reject it and religious matters the form alone is a point in question the spirit speaks to the spirit and not to the ears the principles of everything we are acquainted with must necessarily have been revealed to those from whom we have received them as a great supreme principle which contains them all the bee erecting its hive the swallow building its nest the ant constructing its cave and the spider warping its web would never have done anything but for a previous and everlasting revelation we must either believe that it is so or admit that the matter is endowed with thought but as we dare not pay such a compliment to matter it is done by revelation the great philosopher who have deeply studied nature thought that he had found the truth because he acknowledged nature as God died too soon a little while longer he would have gone much farther and yet his journey would have been a short one for finding himself in his author he could not have denied him in short we move and have our being he would have found him inscrutable and those would have ended his journey God great principle of all minor principles God who is himself without a principle could not conceive himself if in order to do it he required to know his own principle a blissful ignorance spinosa the virtuous spinosa died before he could possess it he would have died a learned man and with the right to the reward his virtue deserved if he had only supposed his soul to be immortal it is not true that a wish for reward is unworthy of real virtue and throws a blemish upon his purity such a pretension on the contrary helps to sustain virtue man being himself too weak to consent to be virtuous only for his own gratification I hold as a myth that I am fearless who prefer to be good than to seem good in fact I do not believe there is an honest man alive without some pretension and here is mine I pretend to the friendship to the esteem to the gratitude of my readers I claim their gratitude if my moist can give them instruction and pleasure I claim their esteem if rendering me justice they find more good qualities in me than false and I claim their friendship as soon as they deem me worthy of it by the candor and the good faith with which I abandon myself to their judgment without disguise and exactly as I am in reality and they will find all these hats since their love for truth that I have often begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms they will not form a wrong opinion of me in this sea when emptying posts of my friends to satisfy my fancies for those friends entertain idle schemes and by giving them the hope of success I trusted to disappointment to chose I would deceive them to make them wiser and I did not consider myself guilty for I applied to my own enjoyment sums of money which would have been lost in the vain pursuit of possessions denied by nature therefore I was not actuated by the abracious capacity I might think myself guilty if I were rich now but I have nothing I have squandered everything it is my comfort and my justification the money was intended for extravagant follies and by applying it to my own follics I did not turn it into a very different channel if I were deceived in my hope to please I candidly confess I would regret it but not sufficiently so to repent having returned my memoirs for after all writing them has given me pleasure or cruel and newy it must be by mistake that those who have invented the comments of hell have forgotten to ascribe the the first place among them yet I am bound to own that I entertain a great fear of uses it is too natural a fear for me to boast of being insensible to them and I cannot find any solace in the idea that when these memoirs are published I shall be no more I cannot think without a shredder of contracting any obligation towards death for happy or miserable life is the only blessing which man possesses and those who do not love it are unworthy of it if you prefer honor to life it is because life is splited by infamy and if in the alternative man sometimes throws away his life philosophy must remain silent of death cruel death fatal law which nature necessarily rejects because the very office is to destroy nature sithra says that death frees us from all pains and foras for this great philosopher books all expense without taking the receipts into account I do not recollect if when he wrote his testosterone disputations his own truly I was dead death is a monster which turns away from the great theater an attentive hero before the end of the play which deeply interests him and this is a reason enough to hate it all my adventures are not to be found in these memoirs those which might have offended the persons who have played a sorrow part therein in spite of this resolve my readers will perhaps often think me indiscreet and I am sorry for it should I have a chance become wiser before I give up the ghost I might burn every one of these sheets but now I have not courage enough to do it it may be that certain love scenes will be considered to be explicit but let no one blame me unless it be for lack of skill for there are not to be scolded because in my old age I can find no other enjoyment but that which recollections of the past afford me after all virtues and prudish readers are at liberties to skip over any offensive pictures and I think it my duty to give them this piece of advice so much the voice for those who may not read my preface it is no fault of mine if they do not for everyone ought to know that a preface is to a book but a playbill is to a comedy both must be read my memoirs are not written for young persons who in order to avoid false steps and slippery roads ought to spend their youth in blissful ignorance but for those who having total experience of life are no longer exposed to temptation and who having but too often gone through the fire are like salmander's and can be squashed by it no more true virtue is but a habit and I have no hesitation in saying that the real virtues are those persons who can practice virtue without the slightest trouble such persons are always full of toleration and it is to them that my memoirs are addressed I have written in French and not in Italian because the French language is more universal than mine and the purists style some Italian terms will be quite right but only in case it should prevent them from understanding me clearly the Greeks admired Cio Frastus in spite of his aeration style and the Romans delighted in their living in spite of his paternity provided I amuse my readers it seems to me that I can claim the same indulgence after all every Italian reads Algarotti with pleasure although his works are full of French idioms there is one thing worthy of notice of all the living languages belonging to the Republic of Netters the French tongue is only one which has been condemned by its masters never to borrow in order to become rich with all other languages although richer in words than the French plunder from its words in constructions of sentences whenever they find that by such robbery they add something to their own beauty yet those who borrow the most from the French are the most forward in trumpeting the poverty of that language very likely thinking that such an accusation defies their depredations it is said that the French language has attained the apology of its beauty and that the smallest foreign loan would spoil it but I make hold to assert that this is prejudice for although it certainly is the most clear the most logical of all languages it would be great temerity to affirm that can never go further or higher than it has gone we all recollect that in the days of Lully there was but one opinion of its music yet Rameau came and everything was changed the new impulse given to the French nation may open new and unexpected horizons in new beauties fresh professions may spring off from new combinations and from new wants the motto adopted justifies my discretions and all the commentaries perhaps to numerous in which I indulge upon my greatest exploits naturally calm sapid fee, see be non sapid for the same reason I have always felt a great desire to receive praise and applause from polite society excited auditors that them loud thick virtuos present at a mensome gloria calcare habit I would willingly have displayed here the proud axiom Nemo le editor you see as a heapso and I am not feared to offend the immense number of persons who whenever anything goes wrong with them I want to exclaim it is no fault of mine I cannot deprive them of their small particle of comfort for were it not for it they would soon feel hatred for themselves and self hatred often leads to the fatal idea of self destruction as for myself I have always willingly acknowledged my own self as a principal cause of every good or of every evil which may befall me therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil and ready to love my teacher end of authors preface recording by Ashran Jain