his household, which the boy soon
resigned for a gayer life.

After this came a long series of adventurous years, during which he
visited Rome, Naples, Constantinople, and other places, and was
admitted to many orders of chivalry. During these wanderings he became
acquainted with Rousseau and Voltaire; visited the court of Frederick
the Great; went to Russia, where he was smiled upon by the Empress
Catharine II. At Versailles, where he was a familiar figure, Louis XV.
honored him with a personal interview. But even in a society disposed
to be lenient to any one who was amusing, Casanova incurred disgrace.
After becoming notorious over Europe as a trickster at cards, and for
his dissipations, he returned to Venice in 1755.

There he was as gay and as dissolute as ever, but in his intervals of
spare time he wrote a refutation of a work by Amelot de la Houssaye
upon the condition of the Republic. He had hoped it would reinstate
him in public opinion, but it failed to do so, and before long he was
denounced to the government as a spy and thrown into prison. In the
'Recit de sa Captivite' (1788) he himself has told the dramatic story
of his confinement in the garret of a ducal palace, and of his
wonderful escape. The hot Italian sun beating down on the leaden roof
added to his discomfort, and he was too daring and too ingenious to
suffer long in patience. With the aid of an iron bolt which he had
sharpened, he bored a hole through the wall of his cell and gained
access to another prisoner, Father Balbi. For a long time they plotted
together, and at last after many efforts and dangers they extricated
themselves by way of the roofs.

This feat added greatly to his fame. He was feted and courted
everywhere, and his extravagances set the fashions for years. But in
spite of the admiration he excited, he was too dangerous a citizen to
be allowed long in a place. He was expelled from Varsovia in
consequence of a duel. Then Paris, and later Madrid, drove him away.

His life of excesses had broken his health, when in 1782 he attached
himself to the Count of Waldstein, a German prince whom he followed
into Bohemia. Soon after, he began the famous 'Memoires,' his chief
literary achievement. He wrote several historical works, a translation
in verse of the Iliad, and many political sketches. Others of his
writings, such as 'Eighty Years Spent among the Inhabitants of the
Interior of the Globe,' show him possessed of a lively imaginat