Casanova's Women (29 page)

A month after Murray's arrival in Venice, the Inquisitors ordered one of their spies, a jeweller named Giovanni Battista Manuzzi, to keep track of Casanova's activities. Between November 1754 and the following July, Manuzzi stalked his quarry through Venice. He questioned Casanova's old neighbours in the parish of San Samuele and the men who worked at the wine-shops he frequented, he gathered information about his relationship with Senator Bragadin, and he no doubt tailed him on his frequent trips to Murano. Manuzzi even waylaid Casanova himself at an inn, goading him on to boast about his exploits.

Casanova and Marina were unaware that both their situations were about to change, and very much for the worse. For in January 1755 de Bernis was sent to Parma by his government; and from there he was recalled to Paris. Returning to Venice for a brief spell in May to be ordained as a sub-deacon by the patriarch, he finally left Venice for good on the last day of that month. His return to France plunged Marina into despair, bringing on a serious illness, probably depression. She had already lost Caterina, who nowadays slept in her aunt's chamber at the convent. Now she had lost a man who had genuinely loved her, who had enabled her to fulfil her passionate nature, and whose generosity had bought her a degree of freedom. The Murano
casino
which had been her refuge for more than two years was sold along with all its contents, and without the
ambassador to protect her and buy the gondoliers' discretion, escaping from the convent was impossible for her. As in the early days of her confinement at the Angeli, Marina was a prisoner in the house of God. Unable to meet her alone any more, Casanova comforted her as best he could through the iron screen in the visiting parlour. Soon she would lose this bittersweet pleasure too.

Just eight weeks after de Bernis left Venice the Inquisitors moved in on Casanova. By now Manuzzi had compiled at least half a dozen reports on him. They painted a picture of a consummate conman, a sponger and an unbeliever ‘who, by his lies and his beautiful words, lives off others'. Money was ‘never lacking to him'. He had been the ruin of Senator Bragadin, from whom he had extricated a great deal of money ‘and made him believe that he can make the Angel of Light appear'. In addition Casanova had travelled widely posing as ‘a man of letters'. He was acquainted with and beloved by many patricians, foreigners and the flower of Venice's youth, whom he bewitched with his clever talk. Casanova was given to mixing with debauched people, Manuzzi claimed, and he led them even deeper into bad ways. He had heard him admit that he cheated at cards and, perhaps worst of all, boast that he was a freethinker who ‘believes nothing in the matter of religion'. In a wine-shop called
Al Rinaldo Trionfante
Manuzzi had heard Casanova publicly read out a poem which mocked religion: ‘The subject is treated in an astonishing manner for he speaks both directly and indirectly of copulation.'
³⁵
In short, he was a reprehensible character: ‘Conversing with and becoming intimate with the said Casanova one sees truly united in him misbelief, imposture, lasciviousness, voluptuousness in a manner to inspire horror.'
³⁶
If Manuzzi had found out about Casanova's relationship with Mother Maria Contarina of the convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, this information was not included in the report; since the nun was one of the powerful Morosini clan, the resulting scandal would have been too terrible.

On 20 July Manuzzi was ordered by the Inquisitors to get hold of a copy of Casanova's blasphemous, pornographic poem. He broke
into Casanova's rooms but could not find it. Instead, he reported that Casanova ‘has many evil books at his place, and at the back of a cupboard, strange objects including a kind of leather apron like those worn by people who call themselves
masons
in what they call loges'.
³⁷
Casanova had indeed been initiated into freemasonry in the French city of Lyon in 1750. On 25 July – ironically the Feast of San Giacomo, his name day – the Inquisitors issued an order to their agent Messer Grande ‘to arrest G. Casanova, to take all his papers and conduct him to I Piombi' – the notorious prison under the roof of the Doge's Palace known as The Leads. That evening Messer Grande and his
sbirri
forced their way into Casanova's
casino
looking, so they claimed, for a trunk full of contraband salt. Protective of him as ever, Senator Bragadin advised his adopted son to flee the city immediately, as he had done in 1749, but this time Casanova stubbornly refused to go.

At daybreak the following morning, Messer Grande entered Casanova's chamber in the Palazzo Bragadin, woke him up and arrested him. While his possessions were rifled through and his books seized, he dressed himself in a smart ruffled shirt, a new coat, a floss-silk cloak and a hat trimmed with lace and a jaunty white feather. Guarded by thirty to forty officers, he was escorted to the constables' headquarters, and from there conducted by gondola to the Doge's palace, where he was marched upstairs to the attic cells. Here one of the most restless spirits of the eighteenth century was imprisoned in solitary confinement in a dark, baking hot cell so low that he could not stand upright. The place was bare except for a bucket ‘for the needs of nature' and a wooden shelf one foot wide fastened four feet above the floor. Rats the size of rabbits scuffled outside the thick iron grating that separated this tiny hell-hole from the garret that led to it, and an instrument of execution was nailed to the wall.

Casanova was never tried. Neither was he told how long he had been condemned for, nor informed of the reason for his arrest. Nevertheless on 21 August 1755 his offence was recorded in the journal of the Secretary of the Inquisitors: it was ‘the grave faults
committed by G. Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion'.
³⁸

On 12 September it was noted in the Republic's records that Casanova had been condemned to The Leads for a term of five years. This was a light sentence compared to Marina Maria Morosini's. She was still imprisoned within the walls of Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1790, at which time she was listed in the records as the convent's abbess. It is believed that she died there in 1799.

As for Caterina Capretta, she was allowed out of the Murano convent after three years in order to marry a Venetian lawyer named Sebastiano Marsigli. She appears to have born no resentment towards her seducer, for when he returned to Venice from exile in 1774 she renewed her acquaintance with him. Two letters to him bearing the name Caterina Marsigli, written in 1780 and 1781, were found among his papers after his death.

I laugh when I hear certain women call men whom they accuse of inconstancy ‘perfidious'. They would be right if they could prove that when we swear to be true to them we have the intention of failing them. Alas! We love without consulting our reason, and reason is no more mixed up in it when we stop loving them
.
¹

MARIA-MADDALENA BALLETTI, known as Manon, was born into a theatrical dynasty in Paris. Her father was a famous actor, her uncle an impresario, her aunt Flaminia a playwright, and her mother was quite simply the most famous actress of her generation and the idol of all France.

Manon's paternal grandmother, an actress named Giovanna Benozzi, was the same La Fragoletta over whom Casanova's own father, Gaetano, had run away from his home in Parma back in 1716. Mario, La Fragoletta's son by actor Francesco Balletti, had followed in his thespian parents' footsteps, and in 1715 he moved to Paris to join a new company of Commedia dell' Arte players set up under the patronage of the Regent, Philip of Orléans (Paris's previous Italian troupe had been expelled in 1697 for staging
La Fausse Prude
, a play which made fun of Louis XIV's mistress Madame de Maintenon). Successful from its very first performance at the Palais-Royal theatre on 18 May 1716, the new Comédie-Italienne also included Mario's sister, playwright and actress Elena ‘Flaminia' Riccoboni and her
husband, impresario and actor ‘Lelio' Riccoboni. From the Palais Royal the players moved to the revamped Hôtel de Bourgogne, where they continued to perform to much acclaim.

Four years later the company was joined by a Toulouse-born actress named Rosa-Giovanna Benozzi, whose own family of itinerant Italian players appears from its surname to have been related to La Fragoletta's. She and Mario fell in love, and were married on 15 June 1720. During the next decade Rosa-Giovanna – now known simply as Silvia after one of the parts she played – became the most outstanding actress in Paris and a revered figure in society. Though no beauty, she appeared to be one by sheer force of personality. In her portrait by Nattier, which depicts her as Thalia, the muse of comedy whose image appeared on the stage curtains of the Comédie-Italienne, Silvia's eyes sparkle with amusement and kindness, and an almost impish smile plays across her lips. Affable, witty, modest, unpretentious and equally charming towards everyone from her fellow thespians to the aristocratic courtiers who fawned on her, Silvia brought all these good qualities to the stage, as well as an innate emotional intelligence. Her acting was so skilful that it always appeared totally natural. Inspired by her talent, Pierre Marivaux wrote plays especially for her.

Apart from being a marvellous actress ('the best in the kingdom' according to Frederick the Great) Silvia was intelligent and deeply pious. A portrait of the Virgin hung in her bedroom, and her personal library of some two hundred books included moral texts, volumes on the English theatre and the works of Molière and Corneille. Unlike most actresses of her day, her morals were impeccable. Famously faithful to Mario, she was also a devoted mother to their three sons – Antonio, Luigi and Guglielmo – and their only daughter, Manon, who was born in April 1740, when Silvia was in her late thirties.

Toi que les Grâces ont formée,
Sois sure aimable Silvia,
Que tu seras toujours aimée
Tant que le bon goût durera
.

 

(You who the Graces have made
Be certain, kind Silvia,
That you will always be loved
As long as good taste endures.)

 

read a poem about Silvia published in
Le Mercure de France
. Her teetotaller husband was equally lauded in the Parisian press for his good character and talent:

Mario, que chacun renomme
Pour un acteur ingénieux,
Le rôle que tu fais le mieux,
C'est le rôle d'un galant homme
.
²

 

(Mario, whom everyone admires
As an ingenious actor,
The rob you play the best
Is that of a courteous man.)

 

Success earned the B allettis the respect of their peers, the adoration of their audiences and an extremely interesting circle of artistic friends. Their daughter grew up in a cultured home filled with books and musical instruments and frequented by all the greatestpainters, actors and writers of the day. The print-hung walls of the dining-room in their house in the rue du Petit-Lion – a building which the family shared with the director of Paris's Opéra-Comique, Charles-Simon Favart, and his wife, writer and light-opera -star Marie Favart – echoed with the lively talk and laughter of guests at mealtimes. Marivaux was a frequent visitor, as was Louis XV's painter Carle Vanloo, whose portrait of Silvia hung in the salon. However, although they entertained constantly and employed a cook, a general servant and a maid, money was always in short supply in the Balletti household; and when Mario died in 1762 he left fifty-four unpaid creditors.

Unusually for an actress's daughter, Manon received a first-class education at the convent of the Ursulines de Saint-Denis, to the
north of Paris. At home she was taught how to play the guitar and the harpsichord by a famous music master and composer, Charles-François Clément, and how to act and sing by her uncle Lelio and aunt Flaminia, and above all by her mother, who from the moment of Manon's birth regarded her as the most important person in her life. The fourth floor of the house was lined with wardrobes stuffed with theatrical costumes, lengths of material, fans and other props which Manon could use to put on plays of her own, and in her mother's bedroom – a delightful refuge boasting wicker armchairs, floral cushions and a four-poster bed – Silvia taught the girl ‘everything necessary in the way of talents, graces, good behaviour and savoir-vivre'.
³
Although she herself was embraced by the highest echelons of Parisian society, most actresses still lived on the very edge of respectability, or beyond it, and Silvia did not encourage her precious daughter to follow her on to the stage.

By her early teens Manon had grown far prettier than her famously attractive mother. Innocent, loving and obedient by nature, like all her family she was bilingual in French and Italian, and in addition she could read, write, dance, sing, and accompany herself on the guitar and harpsichord. In short, she was enchanting. When her music teacher Clément asked Mario and Silvia for her hand in marriage, they did not object. Although twenty years Manon's senior, Clément was a family friend and a famous composer of theatrical scores and essays on composition. Marriage to him would provide their daughter with a secure future and keep her close to home. That she was not in love with Clément did not matter an iota: it would have been enough for her parents that she liked him. By now Silvia was already suffering from the consumption that would eventually kill her, and she no doubt wished to see her precious daughter settled before she died.

The marriage was not to be. Giacomo Casanova would disrupt Silvia's plans for Manon, and all but ruin the girl's life.

 

Manon Balletti caught her first glimpse of Casanova in June 1750 when she was just ten years old. She was driving with her mother
out of Paris towards Fontainebleau to meet her brother Antonio, who was returning home that day from Italy where he had spent the last four four years. After an hour on the road mother and daughter spied a carriage racing towards them. Antonio leapt out of it and flagged them down and, laughing and crying at the same time, Manon and Silvia jumped down from their Berlin and threw themselves at him with little regard for the well-dressed stranger standing beside him in the road. When they had stopped kissing him, Antonio introduced the stranger as his good friend Casanova, a Venetian whom he had met in Milan in 1749. Silvia graciously invited Casanova to dine with them that evening, and Antonio climbed up into the Berlin and returned to Paris with the women, leaving Casanova to complete his journey alone.