From this time onward he remained almost constantly at the castle where he was placed in charge of the Count’s library and given a pension of one thousand florins annually.

Describing his visit to the castle in 1899, Arthur Symons writes:  “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, 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 twenty-five thousand volumes, some of them of considerable value . . . .  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 whitewashed.  At the end of a bookcase, in the corner of one of the windows, hangs a fine engraved portrait of Casanova.”

In this elaborate setting, Casanova found the refuge he so sadly needed for his last years.  The evil days of Venice and Vienna, and the problems and makeshifts of mere existence, were left behind.  And for this refuge he paid the world with his Memoirs.

II

Letters from Francesca

In 1786, Casanova renewed his correspondence with Francesca, who wrote: 

1st July 1786.  “After a silence of a year and a half, I received from you yesterday a good letter which has consoled me in informing me that you are in perfect health.  But, on the other hand, I was much pained to see that in your letter you did not call me Friend, but Madame . . . .  You have reason to chide me and to reproach me for having rented a house without surety or means of paying the rent.  As to the advice you give me that if some honest person would pay me my rent, or at least a part of it, I should have no scruples about taking it because a little more, or a little less, would be of little importance . . . .  I declare to you that I have been disconsolated at receiving from you such a reproach which is absolutely unjustified . . . .  You tell me that you have near you a young girl who merits all your solicitations and your love, she and her family of six persons who adore you and give you every attention; that she costs you all you have, so that you cannot send me even a sou . . . .  I am pained to hear you say that you will never return to Venice, and yet I hope to see you again. . . .”