“I aspire, Madam, to render myself favorable to the deity to which reason advises me to make homage.  Accept then the offering and render happy he who makes it with your indulgence.

“I have the honor to sign myself, if you will kindly permit me, with very profound respect.

“Giacomo Casanova.”

“Monsieur

“I am very sensible, Monsieur, of the distinction which comes to me from your approbation of my little pamphlet.  The interest of the moment, its references and the exaltation of spirits have gained for it the tolerance and favorable welcome of the good Venetians.  It is to your politeness in particular, Monsieur, that I believe is due the marked success which my work has had with you.  I thank you for the book which you sent me and I will risk thanking you in advance for the pleasure it will give me.  Be persuaded of my esteem for yourself and for your talents.  And I have the honor to be, Monsieur.

“Your very humble servant de Wynne de Rosemberg.”

Among Casanova’s papers at Dux was a page headed “Souvenir,” dated the 2nd September 1791, and beginning:  “While descending the staircase, the Prince de Rosemberg told me that Madame de Rosemberg was dead . . . .  This Prince de Rosemberg was the nephew of Giustina.”

Giustina died, after a long illness, at Padua, the 21st August 1791, at the age of fifty-four years and seven months.

VI

Last days at Venice

Toward the end of 1782, doubtless convinced that he could expect nothing more from the Tribunal, Casanova entered the service of the Marquis Spinola as a secretary.  Some years before, a certain Carletti, an officer in the service of the court of Turin, had won from the Marquis a wager of two hundred and fifty sequins.  The existence of this debt seemed to have completely disappeared from the memory of the loser.  By means of the firm promise of a pecuniary recompense, Casanova intervened to obtain from his patron a written acknowledgment of the debt owing to Carletti.  His effort was successful; but instead of clinking cash, Carletti contented himself with remitting to the negotiator an assignment on the amount of the credit.  Casanova’s anger caused a violent dispute, in the course of which Carlo Grimani, at whose house the scene took place, placed him in the wrong and imposed silence.

The irascible Giacomo conceived a quick resentment.  To discharge his bile, he found nothing less than to publish in the course of the month of August, under the title of:  ’Ne amori ne donne ovvero la Stalla d’Angia repulita’, a libel in which Jean Carlo Grimani, Carletti, and other notable persons were outraged under transparent mythological pseudonyms.

This writing embroiled the author with the entire body of the Venetian nobility.

To allow the indignation against him to quiet down, Casanova went to pass some days at Trieste, then returned to Venice to put his affairs in order.  The idea of recommencing his wandering life alarmed him.  “I have lived fifty-eight years,” he wrote, “I could not go on foot with winter at hand, and when I think of starting on the road to resume my adventurous life, I laugh at myself in the mirror.”