On the 12th June 1784, Francesca replied:  “I could not expect to convey to you, nor could you figure, the sorrow that tries me in seeing that you will not occupy yourself any more with me . . . .  I hid from you that I had been with that woman who lived with us, with her companion, the cashier of the Academie des Mongolfceristes.  Although I went to this Academy with prudence and dignity, I did not want to write you for fear you would scold me.  That is the only reason, and hereafter you may be certain of my sincerity and frankness. . . .  I beg you to forgive me this time, if I write you something I have never written for fear that you would be angry with me because I had not told you.  Know then that four months ago, your books which were on the mezzanine were sold to a library for the sum of fifty lires, when we were in urgent need.  It was my mother who did it. . . .”

26th June 1784. “. . .  Mme. Zenobia [de Monti] has asked me if I would enjoy her company.  Certain that you would consent I have allowed her to come and live with me.  She has sympathy for me and has always loved me.”

7th July 1784.  “Your silence greatly disturbs me!  To receive no more of your letters!  By good post I have sent you three letters, with this one, and you have not replied to any of them.  Certainly, you have reason for being offended at me, because I hid from you something which you learned from another . . . .  But you might have seen, from my last letter, that I have written you all the truth about my fault and that I have asked your pardon for not writing it before....  Without you and your help, God knows what will become of us....  For the rent of your chamber Mme. Zenobia will give us eight lires a month and five lires for preparing her meals.  But what can one do with thirteen lires! . . .  I am afflicted and mortified. . . .  Do not abandon me.”

V

Last days at Vienna

In 1785, at Vienna, Casanova ran across Costa, his former secretary who, in 1761, had fled from him taking “diamonds, watches, snuffbox, linen, rich suits and a hundred louis.”  “In 1785, I found this runagate at Vienna.  He was then Count Erdich’s man, and when we come to that period, the reader shall hear what I did.”

Casanova did not reach this period, in writing his Memoirs, but an account of this meeting is given by Da Ponte, who was present at it, in his Memoirs.  Costa had met with many misfortunes, as he told Casanova, and had himself been defrauded.  Casanova threatened to have him hanged, but according to Da Ponte, was dissuaded from this by counter accusations made by Costa.