the matter
for themselves. It was finally disproved by a series of articles of
Armand Baschet, entitled 'Preuves curieuses de l'authenticite des
Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt,' in 'Le Livre,' January,
February, April and May, 1881; and these proofs were further corroborated
by two articles of Alessandro d'Ancona, entitled 'Un Avventuriere del
Secolo XVIII., in the 'Nuovo Antologia,' February 1 and August 1, 1882.
Baschet had never himself seen the manuscript of the Memoirs, but he had
learnt all the facts about it from Messrs. Brockhaus, and he had himself
examined the numerous papers relating to Casanova in the Venetian
archives. A similar examination was made at the Frari at about the same
time by the Abbe Fulin; and I myself, in 1894, not knowing at the time
that the discovery had been already made, made it over again for myself.
There the arrest of Casanova, his imprisonment in the Piombi, the exact
date of his escape, the name of the monk who accompanied him, are all
authenticated by documents contained in the 'riferte' of the Inquisition
of State; there are the bills for the repairs of the roof and walls of
the cell from which he escaped; there are the reports of the spies on
whose information he was arrested, for his too dangerous free-spokenness
in matters of religion and morality. The same archives contain
forty-eight letters of Casanova to the Inquisitors of State, dating from
1763 to 1782, among the Riferte dei Confidenti, or reports of secret
agents; the earliest asking permission to return to Venice, the rest
giving information in regard to the immoralities of the city, after his
return there; all in the same handwriting as the Memoirs. Further proof
could scarcely be needed, but Baschet has done more than prove the
authenticity, he has proved the extraordinary veracity, of the Memoirs.
F. W. Barthold, in 'Die Geschichtlichen Personlichkeiten in J. Casanova's
Memoiren,' 2 vols., 1846, had already examined about a hundred of
Casanova's allusions to well known people, showing the perfect exactitude
of all but six or seven, and out of these six or seven inexactitudes
ascribing only a single one to the author's intention. Baschet and
d'Ancona both carry on what Barthold had begun; other investigators, in
France, Italy and Germany, have followed them; and two things are now
certain, first, that Casanova himself wrote the Memoirs published under
his name, though not textually in the precise form in which