The Duel Read online

  The Duel

  Giacomo Casanova

  Translated by J.G. Nichols

  ALMA CLASSICS

  alma classics

  an imprint of

  alma books ltd

  3 Castle Yard

  Richmond

  Surrey TW10 6TF

  United Kingdom

  www.101pages.co.uk

  ‘The Duel’ first published in Italian as Il duello in 1780

  ‘The Duel (Extract from Casanova’s Memoirs)’ first published in French in Histoire de ma vie (1960–62) in 1961

  This translation first published by Hesperus Press Limited in 2003

  This edition first published by Alma Classics in 2018

  Translation, introduction and notes © J.G. Nichols, 2003, 2018

  Cover design by Will Dady

  Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  isbn: 978-1-84749-765-9

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Duel

  The Duel

  The Duel (Extract from Casanova’s Memoirs)

  Note on the Text

  Notes

  Introduction

  Casanova – the proverbial assiduous lover or lecher, according to one’s viewpoint – is seen in this volume rather as an adventurer, man-about-many-towns, indefatigable name-dropper, crack shot, amateur theologian, skilled diplomat with an admirable ability to think on his feet, smooth talker and (what makes us aware of all these qualities) a fine writer. The events leading up to the duel, the fight itself and the even more bizarre events which follow it are all presented in a lively, dramatic way. There is no doubt that we have here that often despised, but always compelling thing – “a rattling good yarn”. And there is much more to it than that. What happens, what is said and the reactions of the participants to what happens and what is said all occur against a background of Enlightenment ideas, of generally accepted notions of good and bad behaviour, which are in many ways alien to us now, and all the more interesting for that.

  It is not surprising that duelling has so often furnished material for literature: there are two elements in it whose combination is irresistibly dramatic – absurdity and idealism (absurdity that men are willing to kill or be killed sometimes apparently out of mere pique, and idealism in that there are certain standards of behaviour involved, and anyway no one can fail to admire, at least a little, the apparent indifference to wounds or death). So we find ourselves amused almost to laughter at times, and frequently full of admiration for a cool mind, a cool hand, a cool eye and considerable cool cheek.

  Moreover, serious social issues are involved in duelling. It could be, as Francis Bacon said of revenge in general, “a kind of wild justice” in societies where nothing like our modern systems of law-enforcement and justice (however faulty they may be) existed. It could also be a more or less controlled outlet for a violence that might otherwise express itself in even more disruptive ways. Then it had other functions, to which we may well be inclined to be less sympathetic. It was one way of maintaining an existing hierarchical social order, since it emphasized class divisions: duelling was a “gentlemanly” thing, which the lower orders and women would occasionally imitate, but could never really rise to with the same élan. Duelling was, for hundreds of years, in an equivocal position – both socially and religiously. The law of the land normally condemned it, and yet governments were well aware that, both for national defence and for the preservation of social order, they had to rely upon soldiers (usually the most enthusiastic duellists) who prized a good fight more than their own lives, and so duelling was often winked at by the powers that be. If surviving duellists had always been treated as murderers and executed, there would have been a chronic shortage of officers all over Europe. Theologically the problem was a simpler, but a no less recalcitrant one. For hundreds of years the Church had opposed those ancestors of the duel, trial by combat and tournaments, without being able to get rid of them, and it disapproved of the formal duelling of the eighteenth century, with the same lack of success. This was not simply a matter of condemning a sin which continued to be committed: duelling was at times so much a part of upper-class mores as to present itself almost as an alternative system of belief. Yet the duellists were usually Christians (“more or less”, as Casanova says of himself and his opponent), and so there was a strange coexistence of incompatibles.

  All those features of duelling – and many more – lie behind Casanova’s accounts, where they are not stated as generalizations, but tacitly understood, and they are seen to be all the more powerful, and powerfully conveyed by the writing, because the understanding is tacit.

  Perhaps surprisingly, some of those practical features of duelling which are familiar from literature and drama, and which derive from the many manuals of DIY duelling which were produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are absent from this duel. I mean such apparently important details as the use of seconds to arrange the affair and see that it is carried out fairly, lending also an atmosphere of courtesy and calm to a dangerous situation; the right of the man who is challenged to choose weapons; the decision as to how far apart the combatants should stand (which in this instance appears to be determined by the space that happens to be available!); the signal upon which firing should begin; and the point at which the duel may be regarded as over. This comparative lack of formality means that Casanova is in greater danger after the duel than before, but it also means that he is able to make one or two remarks, immediately before the duel, which have a great effect on its outcome. This neglect of many features of a standard and sensible procedure gives a greater air of vraisemblance to the whole event, and also reveals many of the assumptions behind the fight. There is a clash between Enlightenment formality and perennial human barbarism. Branicki’s over-enthusiastic friend, Biszewski, who is anxious above all to kill someone, is duly punished, but he is clearly representative of a general reaction to the duel.

  That there is a tacit understanding of what is involved is revealed in many ways. Both duellists bare their breasts: despite the professions of courtesy on both sides, each needs to be sure that no armour is worn under the clothes. This action of theirs shows also that it is taken for granted that each will aim at the other’s chest, a fact of which the laterally thinking Casanova takes full advantage. Again, the guns have to be loaded on the spot, with the added condition of “You load and I choose”. The episode which is most revelatory, however, is the conversation between Branicki and Casanova in which they arrange the duel, a conversation that in the longer, Italian version, is given in direct speech and set out as a play. This is in fact another duel, a verbal one this time, where both men are firing shots – trying to get the edge, psychologically as well as practically, on the other – and where not what is said, but what is understood, matters the most. Just one instance is Branicki’s repeated complaint that he does not know Casanova; this has several implications. One, which becomes clearer in the course of the conversation, is that he is afraid that Casanova may be a fencing master, and therefore have an unfair advantage with swords. (A strange thing when one considers that a duel is nothing if not a trial of skill, and an even more interesting thing when one learns later that Branicki is an exceptionally good shot.) Another implication, which only becomes clear after the fight, with several indications from other people, is that Branicki is not very happy about fighting someone who is beneath him socially.

  In these accounts there is also much of interest which is not directly, if at all, concerned with duelling. Casanova is generous with advice for other chancers to profit by: we learn how, and how not, to make a fortune in Russia, for instance. And he is most helpful in setting an example for other adventurers to follow. We see his quick-wittedness and ready speech, his ability to maintain an apparent geniality and also – although this can be much harder to pinpoint – his sense of humour. This comes out in his comments on his one decoration, the Roman order of knighthood. He is obviously pleased with it, and tells us the exact way in which he wears it, but he says also that it is “a respectable decoration which impresses fools”, and he sells it when he is short of cash. This is perhaps cynical enough; but what are we to think when he tells us that he had been “disgusted with it for a long time, because he had seen several charlatans with the same decoration”? Comic in a similar way is the contrast he draws between the religious preparations made by Branicki and those made by himself before the duel. In this comparison Casanova comes off better, of course, as he always does, at least morally (if that is the right word), and in his own opinion; but one feels that the writer himself has something of the same amused attitude to these “religious” devices as his reader inevitably has.

  The inclusion in this volume of a second account of the duel – originally in French and drawn from Casanova’s lengthy memoirs written towards the end of his life – is amply justified by the differences – of approach, detail and emphasis – between the two accounts. In a strange way this adds to the impression of truth, since this is exactly, or rather i
nexactly, how anyone would remember the events of many years earlier and would adjust his telling of the anecdote. The first account, however, the Italian one, is the more impressive. For instance, the pre-duel dialogue between Branicki and Casanova is more summarily, and less effectively, dealt with in the French. But the greatest difference (a good indication of Casanova’s skill as a writer) is that he avails himself in the first account of a device which he obviously could not use in the second – he writes in the third person, referring to himself throughout merely as “the Venetian”. That this suggests a lack of bias in the account and a more consciously literary style is only the most obvious reason for its use. A more subtle reason is that it emphasizes Casanova’s status as an outsider in Warsaw, a status that influences almost everything that happens. In their pre-duel dialogue Branicki says, “I am aware of the tricks your nation gets up to.” This distrust of the foreigner is the cause of much of the unfair treatment of Casanova after the duel. And, as we are gradually made aware, the distrust is well deserved. Indeed, Branicki’s problem is that ultimately he is not sufficiently aware of the tricks which this one Italian gets up to.

  Casanova’s reputation in England is so firmly based on his amorous exploits that “Casanova” is a label frequently applied to womanizers in everyday speech. It is refreshing to see here another, and more versatile, Casanova – the insouciant and engaging risk-taker. There is a caveat to be entered. I am writing of Casanova’s accounts as literature, and ignoring the question of their veracity. This is simply because a discussion of that question would not only take me further than I wish to go, but further than I have the knowledge to go. In anything that purports to be history, the truth does matter; but we can here enjoy a well-written “history” without worrying about its truth.

  – J.G. Nichols

  The Duel

  An incident from the life

  of the Venetian, G. C.

  …animum rege! qui nisi paret,

  Imperat: hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce catena.*

  Horace, Epistles I, 2, 62–63

  The Duel

  A man born in Venice to poor parents, without worldly goods and without any of those titles which in cities distinguish the families of note from common people, but, by the grace of God, brought up like one destined for something different from the trades followed by the populace, had the misfortune at the age of twenty-seven to fall foul of the government, and at the age of twenty-eight was lucky enough to escape from the sacred hands of that justice whose punishment he was unwilling to bear. That criminal is indeed fortunate who can tranquilly suffer the penalty which he deserves, waiting with patient resignation for it to end; that criminal is unfortunate who, after having erred, does not have the courage to make up for his faults and blot them out by due submission to his sentence. This Venetian was an impatient man; he fled, although he knew that by taking to flight he was endangering his life, something which he had no use for without his liberty. On the other hand, perhaps he did not think about it so much, but merely fled, as the lowest animals do, in simple obedience to the voice of nature. If the rulers whose chastisement he was fleeing had wanted to, they could of course have had him arrested during his flight, but they did not bother to, with the result that this ill-advised young man found out by experience that in his desire for liberty a man often exposes himself to vicissitudes which are much more cruel than short-lived slavery. An escaped prisoner never arouses in the minds of those who have condemned him any feeling of anger, but of pity rather, since by fleeing he blindly augments his own ills, renounces the benefits of his restoration to his homeland and remains a criminal, just as he was before he started to expiate his crime.

  In short, this Venetian, overcome by his youthful ardour, left the State by the longest route, since he knew that the shorter route is usually fatal to those in flight, and went to Munich, where he remained for one month in order to regain his health and to provide himself with money and honest attendants; and then, after crossing through Swabia, Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne, he reached Versailles on the fifth of January in the year 1757, half an hour before the fanatic Damiens stabbed King Louis XV of happy memory.*

  This man, who had by force of circumstances become an adventurer – for such anyone must be who is not rich and who goes through the world disgraced in his own country – had in Paris some extraordinary strokes of luck, which he abused. He passed into Holland, where he brought to a successful conclusion some business which produced a considerable sum of money, which he used up, and he went to England, where an ill-conceived passion almost made him lose his mind and his life. He left England in 1764, and through French Flanders he went into the Austrian Low Countries, passed over the Rhine and through Wesel entered Westphalia. He went rapidly through the lands of Hanover and Brunswick, and via Magdeburg he reached Berlin, the capital of Brandenburg. In the two months he remained there – during which he had two audiences with King Frederick (a favour which His Majesty grants readily to all those foreigners who ask for it in writing) – he realized that serving that King gave no hopes of making a fortune. So he left Brandenburg with one servant and a man from Lorraine, an expert mathematician, whom he took with him as a secretary: since he intended to go and seek his fortune in Russia, he needed such a man. He stayed a few days in Danzig, a few in Königsberg, the capital of ducal Russia, and skirting the coast of the Baltic Sea he arrived at Mitau, capital of Courland,* where he spent a month being well entertained by the illustrious Duke Johann Ernst Biron, at whose expense he inspected all the iron mines in the Duchy. He then left with a generous payment for having suggested to the Duke, and demonstrated the means of arranging, some useful improvements in the mines. Leaving Courland, he stayed a short while in Livonia, went rapidly through Karelia and Estonia and all those provinces, and came to Ingria,* and then St Petersburg, where he would have found the fortune that he desired if he had gone there by invitation. No one should hope to make his fortune in Russia who goes there out of mere curiosity. “What has he come here to do?” is a sentence which they all utter and they all repeat: he only is certain of being employed and given a fat salary who arrives at that Court after having had the skill to introduce himself in some European court to the Russian Ambassador, who, if he becomes persuaded of that person’s merit, informs the Empress, who gives the order to send him to her, paying the expenses of his journey. Such a person cannot fail to succeed, because no one would be able to say that money has been thrown away on the travel expenses of someone with no ability; this would mean that the minister who proposed him had been deceived, something that certainly could not happen, because ministers understand men very well. Ultimately the only man who does not have, and cannot have, any merit is the good man who goes there at his own expense. Let this be a warning to those of my readers who are considering going there uninvited in the hope of becoming rich in the imperial service.

  Nevertheless our Venetian did not waste his time, since it was always his habit to be employed in some way or other. But he did not make his fortune. And so, at the end of a year, no better provided for than he usually was, except for letters of exchange with good recommendations, he went to Warsaw.

  He left St Petersburg in his carriage drawn by six post-horses, and with two servants, but with so little money that, when in a wood in Ingria he came upon Maestro Galuppi, known as Buranello,* who was going there at the Tsarina’s behest, his purse was already empty. Despite that, he covered the nine hundred miles, which was how far it was to the capital of Poland, successfully. In that land he who has the air of needing nothing can easily make money, and it is not difficult there to have that air, just as it is most difficult to have it in Italy, where there is no one who supposes that a purse is full of gold until he has first seen it open. Italiam! Italiam!

  The Venetian was very well received in Warsaw. Prince Adam Czartoryski, to whom he introduced himself with a strong letter of recommendation, introduced him to his father, the Prince Palatine of Russia, to his uncle, the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania and a very learned jurisconsult, and to all the great ones of the kingdom who were there at Court. He was introduced by no other name than the one which he took from his humble birth, and his situation could not have been unknown to the Poles, since many of those great ones had seen him fourteen years previously in Dresden, where he had served King Augustus III with his pen, and where his mother, brothers, brothers-in-law and nephews had been. The mendacious gentlemen of the press should hold their tongues. The poor wretches, however, do deserve some sympathy, since lying articles, particularly when they are slanderous, make their papers more fashionable than true accounts do. The only foreign addition which decorated the exterior of the not badly set-up figure of the Venetian was the Roman Order of Knighthood, rather the worse for wear, which he wore on a bright red ribbon hanging round his neck en sautoir, as the monsignors wear their crosses. He had received that Order from Pope Clement XIII of happy memory, when he had the good fortune to kiss his sacred foot in Rome in the year 1760. An Order of Knighthood, of whatever kind, provided it glitters, is a great help to a man who, when he is travelling, has occasion to appear for the first time in a different city almost every month; it is an ornament, a respectable decoration which impresses fools, and so it is necessary, since the world is full of fools, and they are all inclined to evil; therefore, when a beautiful Order of Knighthood can calm them down and make them ecstatic, confused and respectful, it is well to flaunt it. The Venetian stopped wearing this Order in the year 1770 in Pisa where, finding himself in need of cash, he sold his cross, which was adorned with diamonds and rubies: he had been disgusted with it for a long time because he had seen several charlatans with the same decoration.