ors, in France, Italy and
Germany, have followed them; and two things are now certain, first, that
Casanova himself wrote the _Memoirs_ published under his name, though
not textually in the precise form in which we have them; and, second,
that as their veracity becomes more and more evident as they are
confronted with more and more independent witnesses, it is only fair to
suppose that they are equally truthful where the facts are such as could
only have been known to Casanova himself.

II

For more than two-thirds of a century it has been known that Casanova
spent the last fourteen years of his life at Dux, that he wrote his
_Memoirs_ there, and that he died there. During all this time people
have been discussing the authenticity and the truthfulness of the
_Memoirs_, they have been searching for information about Casanova in
various directions, and yet hardly any one has ever taken the trouble,
or obtained the permission, to make a careful examination in precisely
the one place where information was most likely to be found. The very
existence of the manuscripts at Dux was known only to a few, and to most
of these only on hearsay; and thus the singular good fortune was
reserved for me, on my visit to Count Waldstein in September 1899, to be
the first to discover the most interesting things contained in these
manuscripts. M. Octave Uzanne, though he had not himself visited Dux,
had indeed procured copies of some of the manuscripts, a few of which
were published by him in _Le Livre_, in 1887 and 1889. But with the
death of _Le Livre_ in 1889 the _Casanova inedit_ came to an end, and
has never, so far as I know, been continued elsewhere. Beyond the
publication of these fragments, nothing has been done with the
manuscripts at Dux, nor has an account of them ever been given by any
one who has been allowed to examine them.

For five years, ever since I had discovered the documents in the
Venetian archives, I had wanted to go to Dux; and in 1899, when I was
staying with Count Luetzow at Zampach, in Bohemia, I found the way kindly
opened for me. Count Waldstein, the present head of the family, with
extreme courtesy, put all his manuscripts at my disposal, and invited me
to stay with him. Unluckily, he was called away on the morning of the
day that I reached Dux. He had left everything ready for me, and I was
shown over the castle by a friend of his, Dr. Kittel, whose courtesy I
should like also to acknowledge. After a hur