The Secrets of Casanova Read Online Free PDF

century ago by Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister. Do you know Fouquet’s story?”
    “No, sir. I know much of your French king, but I know nothing of Fouquet.”
    “When the eighteen thousand workmen finally completed their labors on the château, Fouquet invited the young king to a resplendent celebration. King Louis seemed well pleased, yet a short time later Louis had the man arrested. Although the official charge was embezzlement, the real reason for Fouquet’s arrest was that he refused to divulge a secret to the king, a secret of spellbinding significance. Louis ordered Nicolas Fouquet’s head bound in a mask of iron, and he was locked away for the remainder of his life. King Louis, it is certain, never obtained the secret.”
    Jacques’ gut wrenched at the thought of an iron mask on a human head. But then his mind began to race. Is the old man about to reveal his vital secret?
    “You will visit Fouquet’s wondrous château, Monsieur Jacques Casanova?”
    “Certainly, Vicomte.”
    Fragonard, momentarily transfixed by a flitting moth, extended his index finger before him, where the moth alighted before fluttering away toward the row of lanterns. “Your brother, sir, has told me you are unmarried.”
    “Unmarried, yes. Willfully so.”
    “I also was heedless in my bachelor days. We roués, a dozen of us, squandered small fortunes in venery. We furnished our homes with expensive art, sexual stimulants, and extravagances. Can you imagine a twenty-year-old Frenchman requiring cantharides to fornicate? I remember Duclos—he later died a horrible death from the pox—once spent over ten thousand louis on a gilded siege a deux so he could, from that golden armchair, seduce a new debauchee every night. What an era of indulgence.”
    The Vicomte stared at Jacques as a crack of thunder sounded in the distance. Then with a calm matter-of-factness, he asked Jacques, “You are a libertine, are you not?”
    “I greatly enjoy life,” Jacques said with a smile. “If others accuse me of excess, so be it.”
    “Indeed,” Fragonard said. His eyes gleamed brighter in the lantern light as he stared resolutely at the landscape canvas Francesco painted.
    “Your gifted brother is executing divine and worthy work, I assure you.”
    Francesco, hands on hips, eyes on canvas, seemed impervious to the compliment.
    Though Jacques put little capital in the Vicomte’s stories, could he forestall his now-growing curiosity of the old gentleman’s secret? Should he broach the subject in private to the Vicomte and risk Francesco’s anger? When, if ever, might the Vicomte reveal his hand? Jacques wondered if he could check his own irritability at being in this dark, dank below with little to do. Patience was not one of his strengths, but he decided he would bide his time, at least until the circumstance might be more suitable.
    The Vicomte spoke. “I believe Francesco told me you have other siblings?”
    “As well as our Mother, Zanetta—”
    “Living somewhere in this world—far away from us,” Francesco muttered.
    Jacques continued. “Speaking of the world, Vicomte, you seem a man who has seen quite a bit of it. Why—”
    “I moved to this mansion with my wife. Consequently, I built my wealth with my wife’s fortune. Perfectly shameful.”
    To Jacques, the old man’s guilt was mystifying. Marriage was assuredly intended to further a man’s fortune.
    “Now I live in this out-of-the-way place,” the Vicomte said. He sat down, laid his shillelagh across his lap, and patted his short beard. “This corrupted flesh has led me to places that I, as a young blood, would never have dreamed. I was a perfumer’s son who, being crippled, forfeited my right of primogeniture. Shunned by the military as well as by my father, I became a surgeon. I confess there was not much occasion to practice my profession here in this remoteness, except to bleed, to cup, and to advise bed rest and medicaments. How was I to know that I