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There were letters from Carlo Angiolini, who was afterwards to bring the manuscript of the Memoirs to Brockhaus; from Balbi, the monk with whom Casanova escaped from the Piombi; from the Marquis Albergati, playwright, actor, and eccentric, of whom there is some account in the Memoirs; from the Marquis Mosca, 'a distinguished man of letters whom I was anxious to see, Casanova tells us in the same volume in which he describes his visit to the Moscas at Pesaro; from Zulian, brother of the Duchess of Fiano; from Richard Lorrain, 'bel homme, ayant de l'esprit, le ton et le gout de la bonne societe', who came to settle at Gorizia in 1773, while Casanova was there; from the Procurator Morosini, whom he speaks of in the Memoirs as his 'protector, and as one of those through whom he obtained permission to return to Venice.
This is all that is shown upstairs, for the piombi, or prison cells in the leaden roof, are now closed.
The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the Piombi, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition and a question of passports to get down there, but the drive home through the cool dewy morning made you amends.
HE, indeed, was more to be envied than regretted; but, alas, for the unhappy survivors to whom he was everything! He had, moreover, been my neighbour when under the Piombi. Tremerello had brought me several of his poetical pieces, and had conveyed to him some lines from me in return. There was sometimes a depth of sentiment and pathos in his poems which interested me.
But almost unnoticed the guards bore their burden from the cloister to the gondola of the prisons of the Piombi; for it had taken but a moment to complete the unfinished tale in the minds of the listeners, and with one accord they were gathering about Fra Paolo, eager to express their loyalty, their indignation, their gratitude for his escape. The court was in a tumult. "Fra Paolo!"
He was arrested in Venice, and confined in the Piombi for six years, without books, or paper, or friends. In England he had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that country had written, in Italian, his most important works.
There the arrest of Casanova, his imprisonment in the Piombi, the exact date of his escape, the name of the monk who accompanied him, are all authenticated by documents contained in the 'riferte' of the Inquisition of State; there are the bills for the repairs of the roof and walls of the cell from which he escaped; there are the reports of the spies on whose information he was arrested, for his too dangerous free-spokenness in matters of religion and morality.
From one of the windows I saw a little boy, nine or ten years old, stretching out his hands towards me, and I heard him call out, "Mamma, mamma, they have placed somebody up there in the Piombi. Oh, you poor prisoner, who are you?" "I am Silvio Pellico," was the reply. Another older boy now ran to the same window, and cried out, "Are you Silvio Pellico?" "Yes; and tell me your names, dear boys."
The decree was executed with military force; and, without warning, preparation, or even a parting interview with their families and friends, the suspected were hurried off to the Piombi, that Venetian prison so graphically described by Pellico. All correspondence and personal intercourse was denied.
Balbi replied that he and his companion would do anything possible to make their escape from that abominable prison, but his lack of resource made him add that he was convinced that nothing was possible. "All that you have to do," wrote Casanova in answer, "is to break through the ceiling of my cell and get me out of this, then trust to me to get you out of the Piombi.
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