The Secrets of Casanova (3 page)

“Pardon?”

Francesco repeated his question accusingly.

Miffed as he was, Jacques smiled. His brother was envious.

Francesco barked. “I’d scarcely said two words when the
Vicomte asked me to bring you.”

Jacques sat forward. “
He
asked you to bring me? Are you
keeping secrets? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Who am I to the Vicomte that he proffers an invitation to his château? Why would he curry favor?
Jacques calmed himself before taking on a comforting tone. “Because you
asked me, Brother, I came to see the erotic miniatures. And to
glimpse your landscape canvases. Passionate curiosity—the mainspring of my life—spurred this outing.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“I always tell the truth. Except when I lie.”

Anger reddened Francesco’s face.

The team of bays loped onward while Jacques tried to distract his brother: “This breed from LeBoulonnais are disagreeable to look at,” he said, “but they can run for hours and be as fresh at the end as at the start. I admire perseverance.”

Francesco exhaled loudly, inspected his large hands, but said nothing.

“You’re entirely perfect for executing the Vicomte’s landscape commission,” Jacques volunteered.

Finally the painter spoke. “The Vicomte, I found out, had been inspired by my copies of Simonini’s battle paintings. He eagerly sought to hire me. For my part, I’d hoped to meet influential people through Vicomte de Fragonard, but the more I learn, the more it seems his friends are as old and as strange as he.”

“Neither eccentricity nor age should prevent one from
cultivating a good patron. If opportunity knocks,” Jacques shrugged, “open the door.” He peered out the window at a flock of bellicose crows.

“Are you staying with us again tonight?” Francesco asked,
rubbing his stubbled chin.

“No, suitable manners deem the Hôtel du Saint Esprit to be my next stop,” Jacques lied. “Or I may stay a short while with my acquaintance, the Bishop de Bernis. Five years ago—the first time I met the bishop—he explained the vicious catfight then dividing the royal court. The weighty issue at stake was the superiority of French opera over Italian opera. ‘War of the Buffoons,’ he called it.” Jacques
directed his eyes at his brother. “His point, I suppose, was that
frivolous issues can sometimes divide even the best of us. That fat old cleric told me tales for hours. He claimed my friendship the very day I made my first foray into Paris proper.”

Francesco sneered. “And this time you’ve been in Paris barely two weeks and you itch to return to the high life with the bishop?”

“Simply-speaking, I appreciate your generosity, Brother, so I respectfully restore privacy to you and your wife.”

As Jacques rocked back and forth in his seat, the verdant rolling hills seemed artfully framed through the coach window. During the
ride, he’d seen squirrels, larks, hares, flocks of black turkeys, and
several
stags dotting the countryside. An isolated Latin cross, erected
decades
before by some unknown cleric, glistened against the sky.
Nonetheless, Jacques found himself yearning for the shimmering waterways of
home, his beloved Venice. He missed the customary sounds of
lapping water that had always seemed to gentle his concerns, dissolve his cares. Somehow the water’s magical movement, its regularity, had made him feel still, at peace.

A handful of thatched roofs came into view, turning gold as the sun niggled past a lone cloud. Francesco lowered his window and leaned outside the cab. With his neck arched upward, his long brown hair blew stiff and straight.

“It’s the far house of the pair,” he roared at the driver, pointing ahead.

“Watering the horses?” asked Jacques when Francesco again sat down.

“That also. But more importantly, buying bread. Dominique somehow found that this particular fellow makes better bread than anyone in Paris. I satisfy my wife’s whims when I’m able.”

“Fulfilling women’s whims. In this, at least, we may agree,” Jacques said.

The fiacre rolled to an awkward stop. While Francesco went
inside
on his errand, Jacques waited in the grassy yard. Nearby two
gentlemen in embroidered silk waistcoats—and in animated conversation—escorted a lady arm in arm toward a meadow.

No spirit in her step. Insipid,
thought Jacques
.

“
Je nie Dieu
,” railed one of the men.
“I reject the existence of God, I say. Can you prove to me there is a god or a son of god?” He shook his fist.

“Proof of God? One cannot see the wind, yet everywhere there is
proof of it.”

These kinds of conversations had become a daily occurrence in France as the
philosophes
, led by Reason in the guise of Monsieur de
Voltaire, attacked the official French religion, Catholicism. Indeed,
the entire concept of a deity was under fire—as was, equally
inconceivably,
the institution of monarchy. The times were rife with debate
concerning the spiritual and political enlightenment of humankind.

Jacques wondered if he should inform the gentlemen of a proof
he was taught at seminary, although he recalled that even as a
student, he felt the proof for God’s existence to be flawed.

A loud bawling erupted. Jacques trotted to the rear of the house where a man in tattered clothes sat on the ground, his back against a pile of refuse. Just beyond him, a screaming child, covered in filth, appealed to the man with outstretched arms. The man took no notice while he sniffed a pale, dead fish. He split the fish’s belly, slung the guts into the mud, and devoured the putrid thing.

Before the pleading child could reach the fish entrails, Jacques
snatched her tiny hand, pulled her from the mud, and led her
toward the house.

Inside he joined Francesco, explained the situation, and with a loan from his brother, bought two loaves of bread. Satisfied, he returned to the rear of the house, placed one loaf in the little girl’s hands and one in the grip of the desperate man. The girl nibbled a few bites from her gift, but the starving man stretched his arm high and pointed at Jacques, shrieking, “You! You! Find it in yourself.”

“Sick devil’s completely out of his head,” Francesco said, now standing behind Jacques. The brothers turned, walking toward their fiacre.

Once the coach began moving, Francesco broke one of the rye loaves, releasing its sharp aroma. Although the brothers had shared eggs and chocolate in Paris, Jacques was famished. Catching his brother’s brooding eyes, he extended his hand and was granted a chunk of bread.

The brothers ate, admired the fineries of nature from their coach, and once—watching a reckless bee buzz round and round and out
the window—laughed together. When the coach neared the
Vicomte’s
chateau, Jacques took a last bite of bread and wiped his mouth. “In France, nine-tenths of the people die of starvation, one-tenth of
indigestion.”

“THE VICOMTE EXPECTS ME
to be at my work every morning,” Francesco said. “If a servant is not around, I’m encouraged to enter the house, then go to the cellar.” He opened the front door of the chateau, and the brothers stepped inside.

The anteroom was finished in a peculiar dark green that was illuminated by a triangular window above the doorway. The few articles of furniture were much out of fashion. The vaulted ceiling, perhaps twice the height of a man, reached its apex at a St. Andrews cross, its color an oily dark plum.

“I’d call it royal purple—thwarted,” said Jacques.

His brother stifled a laugh.

Jacques whispered: “These Frenchmen are imbeciles and
madmen, so light that I wonder they stay on the ground.” He fanned his nose and smiled. “And the bitter odor in this home? Apparently, Vicomte de Fragonard inherited a perfume business.”

A deafening slam startled them. Jacques’ hand flew to his dagger, then eased away when he felt Francesco’s reassuring touch.

A raspy voice called out, “Enter the far door, messieurs, and pick your way down the stairway. I shall join you both below.”

Francesco Casanova fetched a key from his pocket, opened the entry, squeezed past a blazing taper, then teetered down the steep stairs with Jacques following close behind.

Jacques’ foot soon crunched the soil of a cellar floor.

His brother said, “I’ve found in my previous trips here that this gloom always brings on my melancholy humor.”

Jacques shivered in the chilled air. “Yes, Cloacina, goddess of sewers, would surely find contentment here.”

“Truly.”

“Admirable of you to take this on, little Brother. Yet I wonder: Did you bring me to this house to show me the Vicomte’s indecent miniatures, as you promised? Or to boost your spirits?”

“We’ll find the erotic miniatures,” Francesco said. “You weren’t brought here for my cheer. You seldom make me laugh.”

Jacques’ reply was cut short when his face was ensnared in a cobweb as thick as a nightcap. Tearing at it, he felt sickened.

While the two men trod through the duskiness toward a not-too-distant brightness, Jacques shot a glance over his shoulder. No one.
He looked ahead. Like a forest of tar-black trees shorn of their
branches, support timbers stretched into the dim distance where a speck of
light offered relief.
Thirty paces farther, a score of lanterns at last
erased the darkness. Jacques shaded his eyes against the light and saw easels, canvases, a number of brushes, and an overstuffed armchair.

“Here is my life, six hours a day.” Francesco stepped toward an easel. “My commission. I duplicate these two canvases—a dozen copies in oil of this nautilus creature and another dozen of that landscape.

Jacques plucked a handkerchief from his pocket to mask his
nose.

“A musty smell, indeed—here,” he mumbled while leaning
toward
the paintings to inspect the precise brush strokes. “The Vicomte
must pay you well, little Brother, to paint in these curious conditions.”

Francesco shrugged. “Vicomte de Fragonard insists I be
tediously
faithful to these originals. You know a great deal about art. What do
you think?”

Does he counterfeit?

“Highly unusual,” Jacques chirped as gaily as possible. “Yet the extraordinary is so much the fashion of the times.” He smiled. “To follow the Vicomte’s instructions unquestioningly, to copy these marvels of nature will certainly enhance your artistic skills.”

Francesco scowled. “Not long ago I was an up-and-coming artist with no need to enhance,” he grumbled while setting up his paints.

Jacques moved to the armchair, running his fingers across the oaken chair back.

“Quite the piece,” he said, stuffing his handkerchief into his sleeve.

A wraithlike cat materialized from under the chair, drew back her head, and hissed. Jacques stooped and coaxed the animal until she threaded herself about his leg, mewing.

“You are an admirer of beauty of all kinds, even Graymalkin the cat,” croaked a disembodied voice.

Jacques strained his eyes to peer into the darkness. “Your Lordship?”

“I don’t believe in the formalities of titles and the like. Although some may refer to me as Vicomte, in my heart all men are created equal.”

A radical.

The Vicomte de Fragonard limped into the illuminated area of the cellar, his eyes glued on the nautilus painting. He moved slowly but determinedly, relying on a shillelagh. He was hunched but not
unduly so for a man who Francesco had called ancient. He wore
rouge on his blemished cheeks, carmine on his lips. Carbuncles blighted his nose. He blackened his eyebrows but not his gray and short-cropped beard nor the insubstantial hair on his head.

Jacques blanched.
Will I look like this man one day?
He raked his
fingers across the pockmarks on his own cheeks. Old scars from
smallpox: a reminder of his first infatuation—and his first rejection.

Francesco acknowledged the Vicomte with a nod. “Vicomte, may I introduce my brother Jacques?”

Jacques bowed. “A pleasure, sir.”

“I’d hoped to meet you, Jacques Casanova. I’ve perused your published account. It’s all over Europe.”

Jacques’ face beamed with pride.

“Can you still find room in your heart for Venice after suffering at its hands?” Fragonard continued. “The solitude of prison can be a great leveler. We come face-to-face with who we are. Or who we might become. But your escape from that Venetian pit, the Leads, must provide you with continual satisfaction.”

“Not entirely,” Jacques said. “The three members of the
Inquisitori de Stato
who were responsible for my imprisonment—Grimani, Dal Zaffo, and—”

“I am acquainted with the name of Signor Michele Grimani of Venice,” the Vicomte interrupted. “Do we speak of the same?”

Jacques nodded.

“Ambitious—Signor Grimani. He seems to want the whole
world—
that which is not already his.” The old man took several steps
toward
Jacques. “And so, after your imprisonment your travels have
brought you here to Paris. In Paris? Well, as you may know, the law of this country has its cruder points. If a man is convicted of a capital crime, his entire family is disennobled and must be deprived of all public employment.”

I was not convicted—or even accused—of a crime, capital or otherwise, when I was carted off to the Leads.
Didn’t I write that in the account?
Perhaps Jacques would enlighten the Vicomte—and someday soon, the
Inquisitori
.

“You’ve earned high regard with your intelligence and your
talents,” Fragonard said. “Your escape from prison was
extraordinarily imaginative.”