Confessions of A Sinner: Truelife Encounters of a Pickup Artist, Volume 1

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The senator recovered from his illness with rest and a sensible diet. As they were cabalists themselves, the senator invited Casanova into his household and became a lifelong patron. I took the most creditable, the noblest, and the only natural course. I decided to put myself in a position where I need no longer go without the necessities of life: No one in Venice could understand how an intimacy could exist between myself and three men of their character, they all heaven and I all earth; they most severe in their morals, and I addicted to every kind of dissolute living. For the next three years under the senator's patronage, working nominally as a legal assistant, Casanova led the life of a nobleman, dressing magnificently and, as was natural to him, spending most of his time gambling and engaging in amorous pursuits.

Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge, but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover. And in another scandal, a young girl who had duped him accused him of rape and went to the officials. Escaping to Parma , Casanova entered into a three-month affair with a Frenchwoman he named "Henriette", perhaps the deepest love he ever experienced—a woman who combined beauty, intelligence, and culture.

In his words, "They who believe that a woman is incapable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of the day have never known an Henriette. The joy which flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms at night.

Having read a great deal and having natural taste, Henriette judged rightly of everything. As noted Casanovist J. Perhaps no woman so captivated Casanova as Henriette; few women obtained so deep an understanding of him. She penetrated his outward shell early in their relationship, resisting the temptation to unite her destiny with his. She came to discern his volatile nature, his lack of social background, and the precariousness of his finances.

Before leaving, she slipped into his pocket five hundred louis, mark of her evaluation of him. Crestfallen and despondent, Casanova returned to Venice, and after a good gambling streak, he recovered and set off on a grand tour , reaching Paris in Casanova was also attracted to Rosicrucianism. It was in Lyons that a respectable individual, whose acquaintance I made at the house of M. I arrived in Paris a simple apprentice; a few months after my arrival I became companion and master; the last is certainly the highest degree in Freemasonry, for all the other degrees which I took afterwards are only pleasing inventions, which, although symbolical, add nothing to the dignity of master.

Casanova stayed in Paris for two years, learned the language, spent much time at the theater, and introduced himself to notables. Soon, however, his numerous liaisons were noted by the Paris police, as they were in nearly every city he visited. In , his brother Francesco and he moved from Paris to Dresden , where his mother and sister Maria Maddalena were living. His new play, La Moluccheide , now lost, was performed at the Royal Theatre, where his mother often played in lead roles. He finally returned to Venice in His police record became a lengthening list of reported blasphemies, seductions, fights, and public controversy.

Senator Bragadin, in total seriousness this time being a former inquisitor himself , advised his "son" to leave immediately or face the stiffest consequences. On 26 July , at age 30, Casanova was arrested for affront to religion and common decency: Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion, their Excellencies have caused him to be arrested and imprisoned under the Leads.

The following 12 September, without a trial and without being informed of the reasons for his arrest and of the sentence, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was placed in solitary confinement with clothing, a pallet bed, table, and armchair in "the worst of all the cells", [48] where he suffered greatly from the darkness, summer heat, and "millions of fleas". He was soon housed with a series of cellmates, and after five months and a personal appeal from Count Bragadin, was given warm winter bedding and a monthly stipend for books and better food. During exercise walks he was granted in the prison garret, he found a piece of black marble and an iron bar which he smuggled back to his cell; he hid the bar inside his armchair.

When he was temporarily without cellmates, he spent two weeks sharpening the bar into a spike on the stone.

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Then he began to gouge through the wooden floor underneath his bed, knowing that his cell was directly above the Inquisitor's chamber. In his new cell, "I sat in my armchair like a man in a stupor; motionless as a statue, I saw that I had wasted all the efforts I had made, and I could not repent of them. I felt that I had nothing to hope for, and the only relief left to me was not to think of the future. Overcoming his inertia, Casanova set upon another escape plan. He solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest.

The spike, carried to the new cell inside the armchair, was passed to the priest in a folio Bible carried under a heaping plate of pasta by the hoodwinked jailer. The priest made a hole in his ceiling, climbed across and made a hole in the ceiling of Casanova's cell. To neutralize his new cellmate, who was a spy, Casanova played on his superstitions and terrorized him into silence. The spy remained behind, too frightened of the consequences if he were caught escaping with the others.

Casanova and Balbi pried their way through the lead plates and onto the sloping roof of the Doge's Palace, with a heavy fog swirling. The drop to the nearby canal being too great, Casanova prised open the grate over a dormer window, and broke the window to gain entry. They found a long ladder on the roof, and with the additional use of a bedsheet "rope" that Casanova had prepared, lowered themselves into the room whose floor was 25 feet below. They rested until morning, changed clothes, then broke a small lock on an exit door and passed into a palace corridor, through galleries and chambers, and down stairs, where by convincing the guard they had inadvertently been locked into the palace after an official function, they left through a final door.

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Thirty years later in , Casanova wrote Story of My Flight , which was very popular and was reprinted in many languages, and he repeated the tale a little later in his memoirs. Thus did God provide me with what I needed for an escape which was to be a wonder if not a miracle. I admit that I am proud of it; but my pride does not come from my having succeeded, for luck had a good deal to do with that; it comes from my having concluded that the thing could be done and having had the courage to undertake it. He knew his stay in Paris might be a long one and he proceeded accordingly: His first task was to find a new patron.

He reconnected with old friend de Bernis , now the Foreign Minister of France. Casanova was advised by his patron to find a means of raising funds for the state as a way to gain instant favor. Casanova promptly became one of the trustees of the first state lottery , and one of its best ticket salesmen. The enterprise earned him a large fortune quickly. In Casanova's view, "deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man". Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist , aptitudes which made him popular with some of the most prominent figures of the era, among them Madame de Pompadour , Count de Saint-Germain , d'Alembert , and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

So popular was alchemy among the nobles, particularly the search for the " philosopher's stone ", that Casanova was highly sought after for his supposed knowledge, and he profited handsomely. De Bernis decided to send Casanova to Dunkirk on his first spying mission. He remarked in hindsight, "All the French ministers are the same. They lavished money which came out of the other people's pockets to enrich their creatures, and they were absolute: The down-trodden people counted for nothing, and, through this, the indebtedness of the State and the confusion of finances were the inevitable results.

Giacomo Casanova

A Revolution was necessary. As the Seven Years' War began, Casanova was again called to help increase the state treasury. He was entrusted with a mission of selling state bonds in Amsterdam , Holland being the financial center of Europe at the time. The French government even offered him a title and a pension if he would become a French citizen and work on behalf of the finance ministry, but he declined, perhaps because it would frustrate his Wanderlust.

He ran the business poorly, borrowed heavily trying to save it, and spent much of his wealth on constant liaisons with his female workers who were his " harem ". Unfortunately, though he was released, his patron de Bernis was dismissed by Louis XV at that time and Casanova's enemies closed in on him.

He sold the rest of his belongings and secured another mission to Holland to distance himself from his troubles. This time, however, his mission failed and he fled to Cologne , then Stuttgart in the spring of , where he lost the rest of his fortune. He was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland. Weary of his wanton life, Casanova visited the monastery of Einsiedeln and considered the simple, scholarly life of a monk. He returned to his hotel to think on the decision, only to encounter a new object of desire, and reverting to his old instincts, all thoughts of a monk's life were quickly forgotten.

In , Casanova started styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, a name he would increasingly use for the rest of his life. Casanova traveled to England in , hoping to sell his idea of a state lottery to English officials. He wrote of the English, "the people have a special character, common to the whole nation, which makes them think they are superior to everyone else. It is a belief shared by all nations, each thinking itself the best. And they are all right. While working the political angles, he also spent much time in the bedroom, as was his habit. As a means to find females for his pleasure, not being able to speak English, he put an advertisement in the newspaper to let an apartment to the "right" person.

He interviewed many young women, choosing one "Mistress Pauline" who suited him well. Soon, he established himself in her apartment and seduced her. These and other liaisons, however, left him weak with venereal disease and he left England broke and ill. He went on to the Austrian Netherlands, recovered, and then for the next three years, traveled all over Europe, covering about 4, miles by coach over rough roads, and going as far as Moscow and St Petersburg the average daily coach trip being about 30 miles.

Again, his principal goal was to sell his lottery scheme to other governments and repeat the great success he had with the French government, but a meeting with Frederick the Great bore no fruit and in the surrounding German lands, the same result. Not lacking either connections or confidence, Casanova went to Russia and met with Catherine the Great , but she flatly turned down the lottery idea. In , he was expelled from Warsaw following a pistol duel with Colonel Franciszek Ksawery Branicki over an Italian actress, a lady friend of theirs. Both duelists were wounded, Casanova on the left hand.

The hand recovered on its own, after Casanova refused the recommendation of doctors that it be amputated. He tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts often Freemasons , wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III. When no doors opened for him, however, he could only roam across Spain, with little to show for it. In Barcelona, he escaped assassination and landed in jail for 6 weeks.

His Spanish adventure a failure, he returned to France briefly, then to Italy. In Rome, Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice. While waiting for supporters to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the Iliad , his History of the Troubles in Poland , and a comic play. To ingratiate himself with the Venetian authorities, Casanova did some commercial spying for them. After months without a recall, however, he wrote a letter of appeal directly to the Inquisitors.

At last, he received his long-sought permission and burst into tears upon reading "We, Inquisitors of State, for reasons known to us, give Giacomo Casanova a free safe-conduct So is our will. At first, his return to Venice was a cordial one and he was a celebrity.

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Even the Inquisitors wanted to hear how he had escaped from their prison. Of his three bachelor patrons, however, only Dandolo was still alive and Casanova was invited back to live with him. He received a small stipend from Dandolo and hoped to live from his writings, but that was not enough. He reluctantly became a spy again for Venice, paid by piece work, reporting on religion, morals, and commerce, most of it based on gossip and rumor he picked up from social contacts.

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No financial opportunities of interest came about and few doors opened for him in society as in the past. At age 49, the years of reckless living and the thousands of miles of travel had taken their toll. Casanova's smallpox scars, sunken cheeks, and hook nose became all the more noticeable.

His easygoing manner was now more guarded. Prince Charles de Ligne , a friend and uncle of his future employer , described him around He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly; he is tall and built like Hercules, but of an African tint; eyes full of life and fire, but touchy, wary, rancorous—and this gives him a ferocious air. It is easier to put him in a rage than to make him gay. He laughs little, but makes others laugh.

He has a manner of saying things which reminds me of Harlequin or Figaro , and which makes them sound witty. Venice had changed for him. Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his dull days.

He heard of the death of his mother and, more paining, visited the deathbed of Bettina Gozzi, who had first introduced him to sex and who died in his arms. His Iliad was published in three volumes, but to limited subscribers and yielding little money.

He got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion. When he asked, "Suppose that you succeed in destroying superstition. With what will you replace it?

Giacomo Casanova - Wikipedia

When I deliver humanity from a ferocious beast which devours it, can I be asked what I shall put in its place. In , Casanova found Francesca, an uneducated seamstress, who became his live-in lover and housekeeper, and who loved him devotedly.

Other publishing and theater ventures failed, primarily from lack of capital. In a downward spiral, Casanova was expelled again from Venice in , after writing a vicious satire poking fun at Venetian nobility. In it, he made his only public statement that Grimani was his true father. Forced to resume his travels again, Casanova arrived in Paris, and in November met Benjamin Franklin while attending a presentation on aeronautics and the future of balloon transport. He also became acquainted with Lorenzo Da Ponte , Mozart 's librettist, who noted about Casanova, "This singular man never liked to be in the wrong.

In , after Foscarini died, Casanova began searching for another position. A few months later, he became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein , a chamberlain of the emperor, in the Castle of Dux , Bohemia now in the Czech Republic. The Count—himself a Freemason, cabalist, and frequent traveler—had taken to Casanova when they had met a year earlier at Foscarini's residence. Although the job offered security and good pay, Casanova describes his last years as boring and frustrating, though it was the most productive time for writing.

He was only able to make occasional visits to Vienna and Dresden for relief. Although Casanova got on well with the Count, his employer was a much younger man with his own eccentricities. The Count often ignored him at meals and failed to introduce him to important visiting guests. Moreover, Casanova, the testy outsider, was thoroughly disliked by most of the other inhabitants of the Castle of Dux. Casanova's only friends seemed to be his fox terriers. In despair, Casanova considered suicide, but instead decided that he must live on to record his memoirs, which he did until his death.

He visited Prague , the capital city and principal cultural center of Bohemia, on many occasions. In October , he met Lorenzo da Ponte , the librettist of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 's opera Don Giovanni , in Prague at the time of the opera's first production and likely met the composer, as well, at the same time. There is reason to believe that he was also in Prague in for the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II as king of Bohemia, an event that included the first production of Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito.

Casanova is known to have drafted dialogue suitable for a Don Juan drama at the time of his visit to Prague in , but none of his verses were ever incorporated into Mozart's opera. His reaction to seeing licentious behavior similar to his own held up to moral scrutiny as it is in Mozart's opera is not recorded.

In , word arrived that the Republic of Venice had ceased to exist and that Napoleon Bonaparte had seized Casanova's home city. It was too late to return home. Casanova died on June 4, , at age His last words are said to have been "I have lived as a philosopher and I die as a Christian". The isolation and boredom of Casanova's last years enabled him to focus without distractions on his Histoire de ma vie , without which his fame would have been considerably diminished, if not blotted out entirely.

He began to think about writing his memoirs around and began in earnest by , as "the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief". The first draft was completed by July , and he spent the next six years revising it. He puts a happy face on his days of loneliness, writing in his work, "I can find no pleasanter pastime than to converse with myself about my own affairs and to provide a most worthy subject for laughter to my well-bred audience. But he decided to proceed, using initials instead of actual names and toning down the strongest passages. I begin by declaring to my reader that, by everything good or bad that I have done throughout my life, I am sure that I have earned merit or incurred guilt, and that hence I must consider myself a free agent.

Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles which were rooted in my heart, I was all my life the victim of my senses; I have delighted in going astray and I have constantly lived in error, with no other consolation than that of knowing I have erred. My follies are the follies of youth. You will see that I laugh at them, and if you are kind you will laugh at them with me.

I expect the friendship, the esteem, and the gratitude of my readers. Their gratitude, if reading my memoirs will have given instruction and pleasure.

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Their esteem if, doing me justice, they will have found that I have more virtues than faults; and their friendship as soon as they come to find me deserving of it by the frankness and good faith with which I submit myself to their judgment without in any way disguising what I am. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping.

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