learned of the death of your well-loved greyhound,
knowing that she would nowhere be better cared for than with you,
Monsieur. I hope with all my heart that she has all the qualities which
may, in some fashion, help you to forget the deceased . . . ."

In the autumn of 1795, Casanova left Dux. The Prince de Ligne writes in
his Memoirs: "God directed him to leave Dux. Scarcely believing in more
than his death, which he no longer doubted, he pretended that each thing
he had done was by the direction of God and this was his guide. God
directed him to ask me for letters of recommendation to the Duke of
Weimar, who was my good friend, to the Duchess of Gotha, who did not know
me, and to the Jews of Berlin. And he departed secretly, leaving for
Count Waldstein a letter at once tender, proud, honest and irritating.
Waldstein laughed and said he would return. Casanova waited in
ante-chambers; no one would place him either as governor, librarian or
chamberlain. He said everywhere that the Germans were thorough beasts.
The excellent and very amiable Duke of Weimer welcomed him wonderfully;
but in an instant he became jealous of Goethe and Wieland, who were under
the Duke's protection. He declaimed against them and against the
literature of the country which he did not, and could not, know. At
Berlin, he declaimed against the ignorance, the superstition and the
knavery of the Hebrews to whom I had addressed him, drawing meanwhile,
for the money they claimed of him, bills of exchange on the Count who
laughed, paid, and embraced him when he returned. Casanova laughed, wept,
and told him that God had ordered him to make this trip of six weeks, to
leave without speaking of it, and to return to his chamber at Dux.
Enchanted at seeing us again, he agreeably related to us all the
misfortunes which had tried him and to which his susceptibility gave the
name of humiliations. 'I am proud,' he said, 'because I am nothing'. . . .
Eight days after his return, what new troubles! Everyone had been
served strawberries before him, and none remained for him."

The Prince de Ligne, although he was Casanova's sincere friend and
admirer, gives a rather somber picture of Casanova's life at Dux: "It
must not be imagined that he was satisfied to live quietly in the refuge
provided him through the kindness of Waldstein. That was not within his
nature. Not a day passed without trouble; something was certain to be
wrong with the coffee, the milk, the dish