succeeded in escaping, and made his way to Paris. Here he was made director of the state lotteries, gained much financial reputation and a considerable fortune, and frequented the society of the most notable French men and women of the day. In 1759 he set out again on his travels. He visited in turn the Netherlands, South Germany, Switzerland—where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire,—Savoy, southern France, Florence—whence he was expelled,—and Rome, where the pope gave him the order of the Golden Spur. In 1761 he returned to Paris, and for the next four or five years lived partly here, partly in England, South Germany and Italy. In 1764 he was in Berlin, where he refused the offer of a post made him by Frederick II. He then travelled by way of Riga and St Petersburg to Warsaw, where he was favourably received by King Stanislaus Poniatowski. A scandal, followed by a duel, forced him to flee, and he returned by a devious route to Paris, only to find a lettre de cachet awaiting him, which drove him to seek refuge in Spain. Expelled from Madrid in 1769, he went by way of Aix—where he met Cagliostro—to Italy once more. From 1774, with which year his memoirs close, he was a police spy in the service of the Venetian inquisitors of state; but in 1782, in consequence of a satirical libel on one of his patrician patrons, he had once more to go into exile. In 1785 he was appointed by Count Waldstein, an old Paris acquaintance, his librarian at the château of Dux in Bohemia. Here he lived until his death, which probably occurred on the 4th of June 1798.
The main authority for Casanova’s life is his Mémoires (12 vols., Leipzig, 1826–1838; later ed. in 8 vols., Paris, 1885), which were written at Dux. They are clever, well written and, above all, cynical, and interesting as a trustworthy picture of the morals and manners of the times. Among Casanova’s other works may be mentioned Confutazione della storia del governo Veneto d’Amelot de la Houssaye (Amsterdam, 1769), an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Venetian government; and the Histoire of his escape from prison (Leipzig, 1788; reprinted Bordeaux, 1884; Eng. trans. by P. Villars, 1892). Ottmann’s Jacob Casanova (Stuttgart, 1900) contains a bibliography.
CASAS GRANDES (“Great Houses”), a small village of Mexico, in the state of Chihuahua, situated on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel river, about 35 m. S. of Llanos and 150 m. N.W. of the city of Chihuahua. The railway from Ciudad Juarez to Terrazas passes through the town. It is celebrated for the ruins of early aboriginal buildings still extant, about half a mile from its present site. They are built of “sun-dried blocks of mud and gravel, about 22 in. thick, and of irregular length, generally about 3 ft., probably formed and dried in situ.” The walls are in some places about 5 ft. thick, and they seem to have been plastered both inside and outside. The principal edifice extends 800 ft. from north to south, and 250 ft. east to west; its general outline is rectangular, and it appears to have consisted of three separate piles united by galleries or lines of lower buildings. The exact plan of the whole is obscure, but the apartments evidently varied in size from mere closets to extensive courts. The walls still stand at many of the angles with a height of from 40 to 50 ft., and indicate an original elevation of several storeys, perhaps six or seven. At a distance of about 450 ft. from the main building are the substructions of a smaller edifice, consisting of a series of rooms ranged round a square court, so that there are seven to each side besides a larger apartment at each corner. The age of these buildings is unknown, as they were already in ruins at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The whole district of Casas Grandes is further studded with artificial mounds, from which are excavated from time to time large numbers of stone axes, metates or corn-grinders, and earthern vessels of various kinds. These last have a white or reddish ground, with ornamentation in blue, red, brown or black, and are of much better manufacture than the modern pottery of the country. Similar ruins to those of Casas Grandes exist near the Gila, the Salinas, and the Colorado and it is probable that they are all the erections of one people. Bancroft is disposed to assign them to the Moquis.
See vol. iv. of H. H. Bancroft’s The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, of which the principal authorities are the Noticias del Estado de Chihuahua of Escudero, who visited the ruins in 1819; an article in the first volume of the Album Mexicano, the author of which was at Casas Grandes in 1842; and the Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua (1854), by John Russell Bartlett, who explored the locality in 1851.
CASAUBON, FLORENCE ESTIENNE MÉRIC (1599–1671), English classical scholar, son of Isaac Casaubon, was born at Geneva on the 14th of August 1599. At an early age he joined his father in England, and completed his education at Eton and Oxford (B.A. 1618). His defence of his father against the attacks of certain Catholics (Pietas contra maledicos patrii Nominis et Religionis Hostes, 1621), secured him the notice and favour of James I., who conferred upon him a prebendal stall in Canterbury cathedral. He also vindicated his father’s literary reputation against certain impostors who had published, under his name, a work on The Origin of Idolatry (Vindicatio Patris adversus Impostores, 1624). During the Civil War he lived a retired life, and after its conclusion refused to acknowledge the authority of Cromwell, who, notwithstanding, requested him to write an “impartial” history of the events of the period. In spite of the tempting inducements held out, he declined, and also refused the post of inspector of the Swedish universities offered him by Queen Christina. After the Restoration, he was reinstated in his benefice, and devoted the rest of his life to literary work. He died at Canterbury on the 14th of July 1671. Méric Casaubon’s reputation was overshadowed by that of his father; but his editions of numerous classical authors, and especially of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (also English translation, new ed. by W. H. D. Rouse, 1900), were highly valued. Among his other works may be mentioned: De Quatuor Linguis Commentatio (1650), Of the Necessity of Reformation (1664), On Credulity and Incredulity in Things natural, civil and divine (1668).
CASAUBON, ISAAC (1550–1614), French (naturalized English) classical scholar, was born at Geneva, on the 18th of February 1559, of French refugee parents. On the publication of the edict of January 1562, the family returned to France and settled at Crest in Dauphiné, where Arnaud Casaubon, Isaac’s father, became minister of a Huguenot congregation. Till he was nineteen, Isaac had no other instruction than what could be given him by his father during the years of civil war. Arnaud was away from home whole years together in the Calvinist camp, or the family were flying to the hills to hide from the fanatical bands of armed Catholics who patrolled the country. Thus it was in a cave in the mountains of Dauphiné, after the massacre of St Bartholomew, that Isaac received his first lesson in Greek, the text-book being Isocrates ad Demonicum.
At nineteen Isaac was sent to the Academy of Geneva, where he read Greek under Francis Portus, a native of Crete. Portus died in 1581, having recommended Casaubon, then only twenty-two, as his successor. At Geneva he remained as professor of Greek till 1596. Here he married twice, his second wife being Florence, daughter of the scholar-printer, Henri Estienne. Here, without the stimulus of example or encouragement, with few books and no assistance, in a city peopled with religious refugees, and struggling for life against the troops of the Catholic dukes of Savoy, Casaubon made himself a consummate Greek scholar and master of ancient learning. His great wants at Geneva were books and the sympathy of learned associates. He spent all he could save out of his small salary in buying books, and in having copies made of such classics as were not then in print. Henri Estienne, Théodore de Beza (rector of the university and professor of theology), and Jacques Lect (Lectius), were indeed men of superior learning. But Henri, in those last years of his life, was no longer the Estienne of the Thesaurus; he was never at home, and would not suffer his son-in-law to enter his library. “He guards his books,” writes Casaubon, “as the griffins in India do their gold!” Beza was engrossed by the cares of administration, and retained, at most, an interest for theological reading, while Lect, a lawyer and diplomatist, had left classics for the active business of the council. The sympathy and help which Casaubon’s native city could not afford him, he endeavoured to supply by cultivating the acquaintance of the learned of other countries. Geneva, as the
