The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 15: With Voltaire. Giacomo Casanova

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СКАЧАТЬ I could not refuse it with a good grace. I therefore accepted, and I then left to go and write.

      I had not been back for a quarter of an hour when a syndic of the town, an amiable man, whom I had seen at M. de Voltaire's, and whose name I shall not mention, came and asked me to give him supper. "I was present," said he, "at your argument with the great man, and though I did not open my mouth I should much like to have an hour's talk with you." By way of reply, I embraced him, begging him to excuse my dressing-gown, and telling him that I should be glad if he would spend the whole night with me.

      The worthy man spent two hours with me, without saying a word on the subject of literature, but to please me he had no need to talk of books, for he was a disciple of Epicurus and Socrates, and the evening was spent in telling little stories, in bursts of laughter, and in accounts of the various kinds of pleasure obtainable at Geneva. Before leaving me he asked me to come and sup with him on the following evening, promising that boredom should not be of the party.

      "I shall wait for you," said I.

      "Very good, but don't tell anyone of the party."

      I promised to follow his instructions.

      Next morning, young Fox came to see me with the two Englishmen I had seen at M. de Voltaire's. They proposed a game of quinze, which I accepted, and after losing fifty louis I left off, and we walked about the town till dinner-time.

      We found the Duc de Villars at Delices; he had come there to consult Dr.Tronchin, who had kept him alive for the last ten years.

      I was silent during the repast, but at dessert, M. de Voltaire, knowing that I had reasons for not liking the Venetian Government, introduced the subject; but I disappointed him, as I maintained that in no country could a man enjoy more perfect liberty than in Venice.

      "Yes," said he, "provided he resigns himself to play the part of a dumb man."

      And seeing that I did not care for the subject, he took me by the arm to his garden, of which, he said, he was the creator. The principal walk led to a pretty running stream.

      "'Tis the Rhone," said he, "which I send into France."

      "It does not cost you much in carriage, at all events," said I.

      He smiled pleasantly and shewed me the principal street of Geneva, andMont Blanc which is the highest point of the Alps.

      Bringing back the conversation to Italian literature, he began to talk nonsense with much wit and learning, but always concluding with a false judgment. I let him talk on. He spoke of Homer, Dante, and Petrarch, and everybody knows what he thought of these great geniuses, but he did himself wrong in writing what he thought. I contented myself with saying that if these great men did not merit the esteem of those who studied them; it would at all events be a long time before they had to come down from the high place in which the praise of centuries, had placed them.

      The Duc de Villars and the famous Tronchin came and joined us. The doctor, a tall fine man, polite, eloquent without being a conversationalist, a learned physician, a man of wit, a favourite pupil of Boerhaeve, without scientific jargon, or charlatanism, or self-sufficiency, enchanted me. His system of medicine was based on regimen, and to make rules he had to be a man of profound science. I have been assured, but can scarcely believe it, that he cured a consumptive patient of a secret disease by means of the milk of an ass, which he had submitted to thirty strong frictions of mercury by four sturdy porters.

      As to Villars he also attracted my attention, but in quite a different way to Tronchin. On examining his face and manner I thought I saw before me a woman of seventy dressed as a man, thin and emaciated, but still proud of her looks, and with claims to past beauty. His cheeks and lips were painted, his eyebrows blackened, and his teeth were false; he wore a huge wig, which, exhaled amber, and at his buttonhole was an enormous bunch of flowers, which touched his chin. He affected a gracious manner, and he spoke so softly that it was often impossible to hear what he said. He was excessively polite and affable, and his manners were those of the Regency. His whole appearance was supremely ridiculous. I was told that in his youth he was a lover of the fair sex, but now that he was no longer good for anything he had modestly made himself into a woman, and had four pretty pets in his employ, who took turns in the disgusting duty of warming his old carcase at night.

      Villars was governor of Provence, and had his back eaten up with cancer. In the course of nature he should have been buried ten years ago, but Tronchin kept him alive with his regimen and by feeding the wounds on slices of veal. Without this the cancer would have killed him. His life might well be called an artificial one.

      I accompanied M. de Voltaire to his bedroom, where he changed his wig and put on another cap, for he always wore one on account of the rheumatism to which he was subject. I saw on the table the Summa of St. Thomas, and among other Italian poets the 'Secchia Rapita' of Tassoni.

      "This," said Voltaire, "is the only tragicomic poem which Italy has.Tassoni was a monk, a wit and a genius as well as a poet."

      "I will grant his poetical ability but not his learning, for he ridiculed the system of Copernicus, and said that if his theories were followed astronomers would not be able to calculate lunations or eclipses."

      "Where does he make that ridiculous remark?"

      "In his academical discourses."

      "I have not read them, but I will get them."

      He took a pen and noted the name down, and said,—

      "But Tassoni has criticised Petrarch very ingeniously."

      "Yes, but he has dishonoured taste and literature, like Muratori."

      "Here he is. You must allow that his learning is immense."

      "Est ubi peccat."

      Voltaire opened a door, and I saw a hundred great files full of papers.

      "That's my correspondence," said he. "You see before you nearly fifty thousand letters, to which I have replied."

      "Have you a copy of your answers?"

      "Of a good many of them. That's the business of a servant of mine, who has nothing else to do."

      "I know plenty of booksellers who would give a good deal to get hold of your answers.

      "Yes; but look out for the booksellers when you publish anything, if you have not yet begun; they are greater robbers than Barabbas."

      "I shall not have anything to do with these gentlemen till I am an old man."

      "Then they will be the scourge of your old age."

      Thereupon I quoted a Macaronic verse by Merlin Coccaeus.

      "Where's that from?"

      "It's a line from a celebrated poem in twenty-four cantos."

      "Celebrated?"

      "Yes; and, what is more, worthy of being celebrated; but to appreciate it one must understand the Mantuan dialect."

      "I could make it out, if you could get me a copy."

      "I shall have the honour of presenting you with one to-morrow."

      "You will oblige me extremely."

      We had to leave his room and spend two hours in the company, talking over all sorts of things. Voltaire displayed СКАЧАТЬ