He said no more. I kissed his hands and left. He did not give me even a sou. That is all he said to me . . . .
"S. E. Pietro Zaguri sent to me to ask if I knew where you were, because he had written two letters to Spa and had received no reply . . . ."
II PARIS
On the night of the 18th or 19th September 1783, Casanova arrived at Paris.
On the 30th he wrote Francesca that he had been well received by his sister-in-law and by his brother, Francesco Casanova, the painter. Nearly all his friends had departed for the other world, and he would now have to make new ones, which would be difficult as he was no longer pleasing to the women.
On the 14th October he wrote again, saying that he was in good health and that Paris was a paradise which made him feel twenty years old. Four letters followed; in the first, dated from Paris on S. Martin's Day, he told Francesco not to reply for he did not know whether he would prolong his visit nor where he might go. Finding no fortune in Paris, he said he would go and search elsewhere. On the 23rd, he sent one hundred and fifty lires; "a true blessing," to the poor girl who was always short of money.
Between times, Casanova passed eight days at Fontainebleau, where he met "a charming young man of twenty-five," the son of "the young and lovely O'Morphi" who indirectly owed to him her position, in 1752, as the mistress of Louis XV. "I wrote my name on his tablets and begged him to present my compliments to his mother."
He also met, in the same place, his own son by Mme. Dubois, his former housekeeper at Soleure who had married the good M. Lebel. "We shall hear of the young gentleman in twenty-one years at Fontainebleau."
"When I paid my third visit to Paris, with the intention of ending my days in that capital, I reckoned on the friendship of M. d'Alembert, but he died, like, Fontenelle, a fortnight after my arrival, toward the end of 1783."
It is interesting to know that, at this time, Casanova met his famous contemporary, Benjamin Franklin. "A few days after the death of the illustrious d'Alembert," Casanova assisted, at the old Louvre, in a session of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. "Seated beside the learned Franklin, I was a little surprised to hear Condorcet ask him if he believed that one could give various directions to an air balloon. This was the response: 'The matter is still in its infancy, so we must wait.' I was surprised. It is not believable that the great philosopher could ignore the fact that it would be impossible to give the machine any other direction than that governed by the air which fills it, but these people 'nil tam verentur, quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videantur."
On the 13th November, Casanova left Paris in company with his brother, Francesco, whose wife did not accompany him. "His new wife drove him away from Paris."
"Now [1797 or 1798] I feel that I have seen Paris and France for the last time. That popular effervescence [the French Revolution] has disgusted me and I am too old to hope to see the end of it."
III VIENNA
On the 29th November, Casanova wrote from Frankfort that a drunken postillon had upset him and in the fall he had dislocated his left shoulder, but that a good bone-setter had restored it to place. On the 1st December he wrote that he was healed, having taken medicine and having been blooded. He promised to send Francesca eight sequins to pay her rent. He reached Vienna about the 7th of December and on the 15th sent Francescd a bill of exchange for eight sequins and two lires.
On the last day of 1783, Francesca wrote to him at Vienna:
"I see by your good letter that you will go to Dresden and then to Berlin and that you will return to Vienna the 10th January . . . . I am astonished, my dear friend, at the great journeys you make in this cold weather, but, still, you are a great man, big-hearted, full of spirit and courage; you travel in this terrible cold as though it were nothing .