358
NOTES -AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL NOV. 2, 1901.
1881, p. 20 : Casanova here speaks of a sister
living at Dresden in 1798).
Vol. II. Chap, xxvii. was in part rewritten in 1797 (see p. 493, Rozez, 1881).
Vol. III. Chap. iii. was written in 1794 (see p. 43, edition 1881).
Vol. IV. No indication.
Vol. V. Chaps, iv. and xii. were written in
1796 (see p. 338, edition 1881).
Vol. VI. Chaps, i. and xiv. were written in
1797 (see pp. 7, 308, ibid.). Chap. xix. ends the memoirs in 1797.
These indications are important, in view of the question whether Casanova wrote more of his memoirs than has seen the light. If we assume (and I think we are justified in assuming) that Casanova in 1797 was writing his reminiscences of events which occurred in 1774, he had still, in the year before he died, twenty - three years to write out. Whether he completed those records between 27 April, 1797, the day on which he sent the preface to Count Marcolini at Dresden, and 4 June, 1798, the date when, after a long illness, he died, is a question that I cannot presume to decide. It must be borne in mind that his literary progress had not pre- viously been rapid. Those twenty - three years ten of which were prolific in adven- tures would, at his usual pace, have occu- pied Casanova two years.
The late Armand Baschet, who contributed to Le Livre four interesting articles entitled 'Preuyes Curieuses de 1'Authenticite des Me' moires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, d'apres des Recherches en diverses Archives/ tells us that twenty-two years after Casa- nova's death a commercial traveller, named Fried rich Gentzel, employed by the house of Anger & Co., called upon the well-known publisher Herr Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus at Leipzig, and introduced to him a Signer Carlo Angiolini, who claimed to be the right- ful owner of a huge packet of MS. in Casa- nova's hand, entitled ' Histoire de ma Vie jusqu'a 1'An 1797.'
This package Angiolini offered to sell on equitable terms, stating that the late Count Marcolini, a minister of State at the Court of Saxony, had in vain offered 2,500 thalers for it (approximately 415/.). After negotiations which occupied twelve months u ^ f Brocknaus became proprietors of the MS., the contract having been signed 24 January, 1821. The entire MS. consisted of 600 sheets in folio, with about thirty lines to the page. It brought Casanova's life down to 1774, the year in which he received his pardon and returned to Venice. There has been much speculation as to whether any
portions can have been destroyed or held
back by those who first came into possession
of the MS. The firm of Brockhaus assert
that nothing has been held back by them,
and that the entire MS. which they pur-
chased from Signor Angiolini has, after a
fashion, been published. The late M. Bas-
chet, on the other hand, was fully persuaded
that those portions of the memoirs which
relate to the period intervening between 1774
and 1797 were drafted, if not actually cor-
rected for the press, by Casanova himself. In
support of that opinion he cites the words
inscribed upon the first page of the preface :
'Histoire de ma Vie jusqu'a 1'An 1797.'
M. Armand Baschet's judgment deserves great
respect, and his arguments can only be
weighed after a patient and impartial exami-
nation of materials at command. This has
been done so far as circumstances allowed.
We find that Casanova wrote the preface twice. His first preface was written in 1791,* the year in which he completed a sketch entitled ' Histoire de mon Existence.' In that year he wrote the following penitent letter to Count Gian Carlo Grimaiii :
Dux, 8 April, 1791.
EXCELLENCY, At a time when my years make me feel that 1 have nearly reached its limits I have written ' The History of my Life,' a work which, as a matter of course, the eccentric Seigneur to whom I belong, and who falls heir to my writings, will publish so soon as I shall have taken rank among those w r ho are no more. In the sixth volume of that history, which will extend to six volumes 8vo, and which will doubtless be translated into every language, your Excellency is portrayed as a very interesting personage. When you have read it you will be deeply grieved that the author should have died before you became acquainted with his real sentiments towards you, and then, although too late, you will extend to him complete forgive- ness.
Your Excellency, whom I have long regarded as a profound student of the human heart, will appre- ciate the difference between one who writes in a momentary fit of anger, and the same writer, in a philosophic frame of mind, who, after the lapse of nine years, commits his thoughts to paper. My ' History ' will be a school for morality, where the reader may detect a satire directed against myself. This discovery will convince him that if the author could be born again he would assuredly be the most perfect of men.
But, in order that your Excellency may the sooner forget the culpable indiscretion which, nine years ago, I dared to commit, I now implore a full pardon, which, if obtained, shall be included among other documents of a similar kind in the seventh posthumous volume of the ' Histoire de ma Vie.' Being in very good health at the present time, I may perhaps live for another ten years, in which case my seventh volume is likely to assume prodigious dimensions and be replete with anecdotes (storiette).
- See Le Livre, February, 1887, p. 37.
