Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30.

Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30.

In a letter of the 25th April 1796, Teresa assured her “very amiable and very dear uncle” that the cautions, which occupied three-fourths of his letter, were unnecessary; and compared him with his brother Francois, to the injury of the latter.  On the 5th May, Teresa wrote: 

“Before thanking you for your charming letter, my very kind uncle, I should announce the issue of our pension of one hundred and sixty crowns a year, which is to say, eighty crowns apiece; I am well satisfied for I did not hope to receive so much.”  In the same letter, Teresa spoke of seeing much of a “charming man,” Don Antonio, who was no other than the rascally adventurer Don Antonio della Croce with whom Casanova had been acquainted since 1753, who assisted Casanova in losing a thousand sequins at Milan in 1763; who in 1767, at Spa, following financial reverses, abandoned his pregnant mistress to the charge of Casanova; and who in August 1795, wrote to Casanova:  “Your letter gave me great pleasure as the sweet souvenir of our old friendship, unique and faithful over a period of fifty years.”

It is probable that, at this time, Casanova visited Dresden and Berlin also.  In his letter “To Leonard Snetlage,” he writes:  “’That which proves that revolution should arrive,’ a profound thinker said to me in Berlin, last year, ‘is that it has arrived.’”

On the 1st March, 1798, Carlo Angiolini, the son of Maria Maddalena, Casanova’s sister, wrote to Casanova:  “This evening, Teresa will marry M. le Chambellan de Veisnicht [Von Wessenig] whom you know well.”  This desirable marriage received the approval of Francesco also.  Teresa, as the Baroness Wessenig, occupied a prominent social position at Dresden.  She died in 1842.

Between the 13th February and the 6th December 1796, Casanova engaged in a correspondence with Mlle. Henriette de Schuckmann who was visiting at Bayreuth.  This Henriette (unfortunately not the Henriette of the Memoirs whose “forty letters” to Casanova apparently have not been located), had visited the library at Dux in the summer of 1786.  “I was with the Chamberlain Freiberg, and I was greatly moved, as much by your conversation as by your kindness which provided me with a beautiful edition of Metastasio, elegantly bound in red morocco.”  Finding herself at Bayreuth in an enforced idleness and wishing a stimulant, wishing also to borrow some books, she wrote Casanova, under the auspices of Count Koenig, a mutual friend, the 13th February 1796, recalling herself to his memory.  Casanova responded to her overtures and five of her letters were preserved at Dux.  On the 28th May Henriette wrote: 

“But certainly, my good friend, your letters have given me the greatest pleasure, and it is with a rising satisfaction that I pore over all you say to me.  I love, I esteem, I cherish, your frankness . . . .  I understand you perfectly and I love to distraction the lively and energetic manner with which you express yourself.”

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Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.