making enemies. The evil tale
was taken up in all its foul trappings, and, upon no better authority
than the public voice, it was enshrined in chronicles by every scribbler
of the day. And for four hundred years that lie has held its place in
history, the very cornerstone of all the execration that has been
heaped upon the name of Borgia. Never was vengeance more terrible,
far-reaching, and abiding. It is only in this twentieth century of ours
that dispassionate historians have nailed upon the counter of truth the
base coin of that accusation.

XII. THE NIGHT OF ESCAPE--Casanova's Escape From The Piombi

Patrician influence from without had procured Casanova's removal in
August of that year, 1756, from the loathsome cell he had occupied
for thirteen months in the Piombi--so called from the leaded roof
immediately above those prisons which are simply the garrets of the
Doge's palace.

That cell had been no better than a kennel seldom reached by the light
of day, and so shallow that it was impossible for a man of his fine
height to stand upright in it. But his present prison was comparatively
spacious and it was airy and well-lighted by a barred window, whence he
could see the Lido.

Yet he was desperately chagrined at the change, for he had almost
completed his arrangements to break out of his former cell. The only ray
of hope in his present despair came from the fact that the implement to
which he trusted was still in his possession, safely concealed in the
upholstery of the armchair that had been moved with him into his present
quarters. That implement he had fashioned for himself with infinite
pains out of a door-bolt some twenty inches long, which he had found
discarded in a rubbish-heap in a corner of the attic where he had been
allowed to take his brief daily exercise. Using as a whetstone a small
slab of black marble, similarly acquired, he had shaped that bolt into a
sharp octagonal-pointed chisel or spontoon.

It remained in his possession, but he saw no chance of using it now, for
the suspicions of Lorenzo, the gaoler, were aroused, and daily a couple
of archers came to sound the floors and walls. True they did not sound
the ceiling, which was low and within reach. But it was obviously
impossible to cut through the ceiling in such a manner as to leave the
progress of the work unseen.

Hence his despair of breaking out of a prison where he had spent over a
year without trial or prospect of a trial