CHILDHOOD - Chapter I
My Family Pedigree--My Childhood
Don Jacob Casanova, the illegitimate son of Don Francisco Casanova,
was a native of Saragosa, the capital of Aragon, and in the year of
1428 he carried off Dona Anna Palofax from her convent, on the day
after she had taken the veil. He was secretary to King Alfonso. He
ran away with her to Rome, where, after one year of imprisonment, the
pope, Martin III., released Anna from her vows, and gave them the
nuptial blessing at the instance of Don Juan Casanova, majordomo of
the Vatican, and uncle of Don Jacob. All the children born from that
marriage died in their infancy, with the exception of Don Juan, who,
in 1475, married Donna Eleonora Albini, by whom he had a son, Marco
Antonio.
In 1481, Don Juan, having killed an officer of the king of Naples,
was compelled to leave Rome, and escaped to Como with his wife and
his son; but having left that city to seek his fortune, he died while
traveling with Christopher Columbus in the year 1493.
Marco Antonio became a noted poet of the school of Martial, and was
secretary to Cardinal Pompeo Colonna.
The satire against Giulio de Medicis, which we find in his works,
having made it necessary for him to leave Rome, he returned to Como,
where he married Abondia Rezzonica. The same Giulio de Medicis,
having become pope under the name of Clement VII, pardoned him and
called him back to Rome with his wife. The city having been taken
and ransacked by the Imperialists in 1526, Marco Antonio died there
from an attack of the plague; otherwise he would have died of misery,
the soldiers of Charles V. having taken all he possessed. Pierre
Valerien speaks of him in his work 'de infelicitate litteratorum'.
Three months after his death, his wife gave birth to Jacques
Casanova, who died in France at a great age, colonel in the army
commanded by Farnese against Henri, king of Navarre, afterwards king
of France. He had left in the city of Parma a son who married
Theresa Conti, from whom he had Jacques, who, in the year 1681,
married Anna Roli. Jacques had two sons, Jean-Baptiste and Gaetan-
Joseph-Jacques. The eldest left Parma in 1712, and was never heard
of; the other also went away in 1715, being only nineteen years old.
This is all I have found in my father's diary: from my mother's lips
I have heard the following particulars:
Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques left his family, madly in love with an actress
named Fragoletta, who performed the chambermaids. In his poverty, he
determined to earn a living by making the most of his own person. At
first he gave himself up to dancing, and five years afterwards became
an actor, making himself conspicuous by his conduct still more than
by his talent.
Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the
Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troop of comedians then giving
performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in
which he had taken his lodging resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome
Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter--a
perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love
with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining
her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for,
being an actor, he never could have had Marzia's consent, still less
Jerome's, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual. The
young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and
accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the
Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony.
Marzia, Zanetta's mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and
the father died broken-hearted.
I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.
The following April my mother left me under the care of her own
mother, who had forgiven her as soon as she had heard that my father
had promised never to compel her to appear on the stage. This is a
promise which all actors make to the young girls they marry, and
which they never fulfil, simply because their wives never care much
about claiming from them the performance of it. Moreover, it turned
out a very fortunate thing for my mother that she had studied for the
stage, for nine years later, having been left a widow with six
children, she could not have brought them up if it had not been for
the resources she found in that profession.
I was only one year old when my father left me to go to London, where
he had an engagement. It was in that great city that my mother made
her first appearance on the stage, and in that city likewise that she
gave birth to my brother Francois, a celebrated painter of battles,
now residing in Vienna, where he has followed his profession since
1783.
Towards the end of the year 1728 my mother returned to Venice with
her husband, and as she had become an actress she continued her
artistic life. In 1730 she was delivered of my brother Jean, who
became Director of the Academy of painting at Dresden, and died there
in 1795 ; and during the three following years she became the mother
of two daughters, one of whom died at an early age, while the other
married in Dresden, where she still lived in 1798. I had also a
posthumous brother, who became a priest; he died in Rome fifteen
years ago.
Let us now come to the dawn of my existence in the character of a
thinking being.
The organ of memory began to develop itself in me at the beginning of
August, 1733. I had at that time reached the age of eight years and
four months. Of what may have happened to me before that period I
have not the faintest recollection. This is the circumstance.
I was standing in the corner of a room bending towards the wall,
supporting my head, and my eyes fixed upon a stream of blood flowing
from my nose to the ground. My grandmother, Marzia, whose pet I was,
came to me, bathed my face with cold water, and, unknown to everyone
in the house, took me with her in a gondola as far as Muran, a
thickly-populated island only half a league distant from Venice.
Alighting from the gondola, we enter a wretched hole, where we find
an old woman sitting on a rickety bed, holding a black cat in her
arms, with five or six more purring around her. The two old cronies
held together a long discourse of which, most likely, I was the
subject. At the end of the dialogue, which was carried on in the
patois of Forli, the witch having received a silver ducat from my
grandmother, opened a box, took me in her arms, placed me in the box
and locked me in it, telling me not to be frightened--a piece of
advice which would certainly have had the contrary effect, if I had
had any wits about me, but I was stupefied. I kept myself quiet in a
corner of the box, holding a handkerchief to my nose because it was
still bleeding, and otherwise very indifferent to the uproar going on
outside. I could hear in turn, laughter, weeping, singing, screams,
shrieks, and knocking against the box, but for all that I cared
nought. At last I am taken out of the box; the blood stops flowing.
The wonderful old witch, after lavishing caresses upon me, takes off
my clothes, lays me on the bed, burns some drugs, gathers the smoke
in a sheet which she wraps around me, pronounces incantations, takes
the sheet off me, and gives me five sugar-plums of a very agreeable
taste. Then she immediately rubs my temples and the nape of my neck
with an ointment exhaling a delightful perfume, and puts my clothes
on me again. She told me that my haemorrhage would little by little
leave me, provided I should never disclose to any one what she had
done to cure me, and she threatened me, on the other hand, with the
loss of all my blood and with death, should I ever breathe a word
concerning those mysteries. After having thus taught me my lesson,
she informed me that a beautiful lady would pay me a visit during the
following night, and that she would make me happy, on condition that
I should have sufficient control over myself never to mention to
anyone my having received such a visit. Upon this we left and
returned home.
I fell asleep almost as soon as I was in bed, without giving a
thought to the beautiful visitor I was to receive; but, waking up a
few hours afterwards, I saw, or fancied I saw, coming down the
chimney, a dazzling woman, with immense hoops, splendidly attired,
and wearing on her head a crown set with precious stones, which
seemed to me sparkling with fire. With slow steps, but with a
majestic and sweet countenance, she came forward and sat on my bed;
then taking several small boxes from her pocket, she emptied their
contents over my head, softly whispering a few words, and after
giving utterance to a long speech, not a single word of which I
understood, she kissed me and disappeared the same way she had come.
I soon went again to sleep.
The next morning, my grandmother came to dress me, and the moment she
was near my bed, she cautioned me to be silent, threatening me with
death if I dared to say anything respecting my night's adventures.
This command, laid upon me by the only woman who had complete
authority over me, and whose orders I was accustomed to obey blindly,
caused me to remember the vision, and to store it, with the seal of
secrecy, in the inmost corner of my dawning memory. I had not,
however, the slightest inclination to mention the circumstances to
anyone; in the first place, because I did not suppose it would
interest anybody, and in the second because I would not have known
whom to make a confidant of. My disease had rendered me dull and
retired; everybody pitied me and left me to myself; my life was
considered likely to be but a short one, and as to my parents, they
never spoke to me.
After the journey to Muran, and the nocturnal visit of the fairy, I
continued to have bleeding at the nose, but less from day to day, and
my memory slowly developed itself. I learned to read in less than a
month.
It would be ridiculous, of course, to attribute this cure to such
follies, but at the same time I think it would be wrong to assert
that they did not in any way contribute to it. As far as the
apparition of the beautiful queen is concerned, I have always deemed
it to be a dream, unless it should have been some masquerade got up
for the occasion, but it is not always in the druggist's shop that
are found the best remedies for severe diseases. Our ignorance is
every day proved by some wonderful phenomenon, and I believe this to
be the reason why it is so difficult to meet with a learned man
entirely untainted with superstition. We know, as a matter of
course, that there never have been any sorcerers in this world, yet
it is true that their power has always existed in the estimation of
those to whom crafty knaves have passed themselves off as such.
'Somnio nocturnos lemures portentaque Thessalia vides'.
Many things become real which, at first, had no existence but in our
imagination, and, as a natural consequence, many facts which have
been attributed to Faith may not always have been miraculous,
although they are true miracles for those who lend to Faith a
boundless power.
The next circumstance of any importance to myself which I recollect
happened three months after my trip to Muran, and six weeks before my
father's death. I give it to my readers only to convey some idea of
the manner in which my nature was expanding.
One day, about the middle of November, I was with my brother
Francois, two years younger than I, in my father's room, watching him
attentively as he was working at optics. A large lump of crystal,
round and cut into facets, attracted my attention. I took it up, and
having brought it near my eyes I was delighted to see that it
multiplied objects. The wish to possess myself of it at once got
hold of me, and seeing myself unobserved I took my opportunity and
hid it in my pocket.
A few minutes after this my father looked about for his crystal, and
unable to find it, he concluded that one of us must have taken it.
My brother asserted that he had not touched it, and I, although
guilty, said the same; but my father, satisfied that he could not be
mistaken, threatened to search us and to thrash the one who had told
him a story. I pretended to look for the crystal in every corner of
the room, and, watching my opportunity I slyly slipped it in the
pocket of my brother's jacket. At first I was sorry for what I had
done, for I might as well have feigned to find the crystal somewhere
about the room; but the evil deed was past recall. My father, seeing
that we were looking in vain, lost patience, searched us, found the
unlucky ball of crystal in the pocket of the innocent boy, and
inflicted upon him the promised thrashing. Three or four years later
I was foolish enough to boast before my brother of the trick I had
then played on him; he never forgave me, and has never failed to take
his revenge whenever the opportunity offered.
However, having at a later period gone to confession, and accused
myself to the priest of the sin with every circumstance surrounding
it, I gained some knowledge which afforded me great satisfaction. My
confessor, who was a Jesuit, told me that by that deed I had verified
the meaning of my first name, Jacques, which, he said, meant, in
Hebrew, "supplanter," and that God had changed for that reason the
name of the ancient patriarch into that of Israel, which meant
"knowing." He had deceived his brother Esau.
Six weeks after the above adventure my father was attacked with an
abscess in the head which carried him off in a week. Dr. Zambelli
first gave him oppilative remedies, and, seeing his mistake, he tried
to mend it by administering castoreum, which sent his patient into
convulsions and killed him. The abscess broke out through the ear
one minute after his death, taking its leave after killing him, as if
it had no longer any business with him. My father departed this life
in the very prime of his manhood. He was only thirty-six years of
age, but he was followed to his grave by the regrets of the public,
and more particularly of all the patricians amongst whom he was held
as above his profession, not less on account of his gentlemanly
behaviour than on account of his extensive knowledge in mechanics.
Two days before his death, feeling that his end was at hand, my
father expressed a wish to see us all around his bed, in the presence
of his wife and of the Messieurs Grimani, three Venetian noblemen
whose protection he wished to entreat in our favour. After giving us
his blessing, he requested our mother, who was drowned in tears, to
give her sacred promise that she would not educate any of us for the
stage, on which he never would have appeared himself had he not been
led to it by an unfortunate attachment. My mother gave her promise,
and the three noblemen said that they would see to its being
faithfully kept. Circumstances helped our mother to fulfill her
word.
At that time my mother had been pregnant for six months, and she was
allowed to remain away from the stage until after Easter. Beautiful
and young as she was, she declined all the offers of marriage which
were made to her, and, placing her trust in Providence, she
courageously devoted herself to the task of bringing up her young
family.
She considered it a duty to think of me before the others, not so
much from a feeling of preference as in consequence of my disease,
which had such an effect upon me that it was difficult to know what
to do with me. I was very weak, without any appetite, unable to
apply myself to anything, and I had all the appearance of an idiot.
Physicians disagreed as to the cause of the disease. He loses, they
would say, two pounds of blood every week; yet there cannot be more
than sixteen or eighteen pounds in his body. What, then, can cause
so abundant a bleeding? One asserted that in me all the chyle turned
into blood; another was of opinion that the air I was breathing must,
at each inhalation, increase the quantity of blood in my lungs, and
contended that this was the reason for which I always kept my mouth
open. I heard of it all six years afterward from M. Baffo, a great
friend of my late father.
This M. Baffo consulted the celebrated Doctor Macop, of Padua, who
sent him his opinion by writing. This consultation, which I have
still in my possession, says that our blood is an elastic fluid which
is liable to diminish or to increase in thickness, but never in
quantity, and that my haemorrhage could only proceed from the
thickness of the mass of my blood, which relieved itself in a natural
way in order to facilitate circulation. The doctor added that I
would have died long before, had not nature, in its wish for life,
assisted itself, and he concluded by stating that the cause of the
thickness of my blood could only be ascribed to the air I was
breathing and that consequently I must have a change of air, or every
hope of cure be abandoned. He thought likewise, that the stupidity
so apparent on my countenance was caused by nothing else but the
thickness of my blood.
M. Baffo, a man of sublime genius, a most lascivious, yet a great and
original poet, was therefore instrumental in bringing about the
decision which was then taken to send me to Padua, and to him I am
indebted for my life. He died twenty years after, the last of his
ancient patrician family, but his poems, although obscene, will give
everlasting fame to his name. The state-inquisitors of Venice have
contributed to his celebrity by their mistaken strictness. Their
persecutions caused his manuscript works to become precious. They
ought to have been aware that despised things are forgotten.
As soon as the verdict given by Professor Macop had been approved of,
the Abbe Grimani undertook to find a good boarding-house in Padua for
me, through a chemist of his acquaintance who resided in that city.
His name was Ottaviani, and he was also an antiquarian of some
repute. In a few days the boarding-house was found, and on the 2nd
day of April, 1734, on the very day I had accomplished my ninth year,
I was taken to Padua in a 'burchiello', along the Brenta Canal. We
embarked at ten o'clock in the evening, immediately after supper.
The 'burchiello' may be considered a small floating house. There is
a large saloon with a smaller cabin at each end, and rooms for
servants fore and aft. It is a long square with a roof, and cut on
each side by glazed windows with shutters. The voyage takes eight
hours. M. Grimani, M. Baffo, and my mother accompanied me. I slept
with her in the saloon, and the two friends passed the night in one
of the cabins. My mother rose at day break, opened one of the
windows facing the bed, and the rays of the rising sun, falling on my
eyes, caused me to open them. The bed was too low for me to see the
land; I could see through the window only the tops of the trees along
the river. The boat was sailing with such an even movement that I
could not realize the fact of our moving, so that the trees, which,
one after the other, were rapidly disappearing from my sight, caused
me an extreme surprise. "Ah, dear mother!" I exclaimed, "what is
this? the trees are walking ! "At that very moment the two noblemen
came in, and reading astonishment on my countenance, they asked me
what my thoughts were so busy about. "How is it," I answered, "that
the trees are walking."
They all laughed, but my mother, heaving a great sigh, told me, in a
tone of deep pity, "The boat is moving, the trees are not. Now dress
yourself."
I understood at once the reason of the phenomenon. "Then it may be,"
said I, "that the sun does not move, and that we, on the contrary,
are revolving from west to east." At these words my good mother
fairly screamed. M. Grimani pitied my foolishness, and I remained
dismayed, grieved, and ready to cry. M. Baffo brought me life
again. He rushed to me, embraced me tenderly, and said, "Thou are
right, my child. The sun does not move; take courage, give heed to
your reasoning powers and let others laugh."
My mother, greatly surprised, asked him whether he had taken leave of
his senses to give me such lessons; but the philosopher, not even
condescending to answer her, went on sketching a theory in harmony
with my young and simple intelligence. This was the first real
pleasure I enjoyed in my life. Had it not been for M. Baffo, this
circumstance might have been enough to degrade my understanding; the
weakness of credulity would have become part of my mind. The
ignorance of the two others would certainly have blunted in me the
edge of a faculty which, perhaps, has not carried me very far in my
after life, but to which alone I feel that I am indebted for every
particle of happiness I enjoy when I look into myself.
We reached Padua at an early hour and went to Ottaviani's house; his
wife loaded me with caresses. I found there five or six children,
amongst them a girl of eight years, named Marie, and another of
seven, Rose, beautiful as a seraph. Ten years later Marie became the
wife of the broker Colonda, and Rose, a few years afterwards, married
a nobleman, Pierre Marcello, and had one son and two daughters, one
of whom was wedded to M. Pierre Moncenigo, and the other to a
nobleman of the Carrero family. This last marriage was afterwards
nullified. I shall have, in the course of events, to speak of all
these persons, and that is my reason for mentioning their names here.
Ottaviani took us at once to the house where I was to board. It was
only a few yards from his own residence, at Sainte-Marie d'Advance,
in the parish of Saint-Michel, in the house of an old Sclavonian
woman, who let the first floor to Signora Mida, wife of a Sclavonian
colonel. My small trunk was laid open before the old woman, to whom
was handed an inventory of all its contents, together with six
sequins for six months paid in advance. For this small sum she
undertook to feed me, to keep me clean, and to send me to a day-
school. Protesting that it was not enough, she accepted these terms.
I was kissed and strongly commanded to be always obedient and docile,
and I was left with her.
In this way did my family get rid of me.
