s we went down stairs, that Madame
de Rosenberg was dead, and asked me if the Comte de Waldstein had in the
library the illustration of the Villa d'Altichiero, which the Emperor had
asked for in vain at the city library of Prague, and when I answered
'yes,' he gave an equivocal laugh. A moment afterwards, he asked me if he
might tell the Emperor. 'Why not, monseigneur? It is not a secret, 'Is
His Majesty coming to Dux?' 'If he goes to Oberlaitensdorf (sic) he will
go to Dux, too; and he may ask you for it, for there is a monument there
which relates to him when he was Grand Duke.' 'In that case, His Majesty
can also see my critical remarks on the Egyptian prints.'

The Emperor asked me this morning, 6th October, how I employed my time at
Dux, and I told him that I was making an Italian anthology. 'You have all
the Italians, then?' 'All, sire.' See what a lie leads to. If I had not
lied in saying that I was making an anthology, I should not have found
myself obliged to lie again in saying that we have all the Italian poets.
If the Emperor comes to Dux, I shall kill myself.

'They say that this Dux is a delightful spot,' says Casanova in one of
the most personal of his notes, 'and I see that it might be for many; but
not for me, for what delights me in my old age is independent of the
place which I inhabit. When I do not sleep I dream, and when I am tired
of dreaming I blacken paper, then I read, and most often reject all that
my pen has vomited.' Here we see him blackening paper, on every occasion,
and for every purpose. In one bundle I found an unfinished story about
Roland, and some adventure with women in a cave; then a 'Meditation on
arising from sleep, 19th May 1789'; then a 'Short Reflection of a
Philosopher who finds himself thinking of procuring his own death. At
Dux, on getting out of bed on 13th October 1793, day dedicated to St.
Lucy, memorable in my too long life.' A big budget, containing
cryptograms, is headed 'Grammatical Lottery'; and there is the title-page
of a treatise on The Duplication of the Hexahedron, demonstrated
geometrically to all the Universities and all the Academies of Europe.'
[See Charles Henry, Les Connaissances Mathimatiques de Casanova. Rome,
1883.] There are innumerable verses, French and Italian, in all stages,
occasionally attaining the finality of these lines, which appear in half
a dozen tentative forms:

'Sans mystere point de plaisirs,
Sans silence point de mystere.
C