783."

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
postilion 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 Francesco 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 . . . . "

On the 9th January, Casanova wrote from Dessau to his brother Giovanni,
proposing to make peace with him, but without results. On the 27th, he
was at Prague. By the 16th February, he was again in Vienna, after a trip
lasting sixty-two days. His health was perfect, and he had gained flesh
due, as he wrote Francesca, to his contented mind which was no longer
tormented.

In F