Secrets of Casanova

by Michaels, Greg

  “My purse! French louis from Michele Grimani! Missing!”

  “What purse?” Petrine cried. “What—?” He looked queerly at Jacques, then closed tight his eyes for several seconds. “Are you sure?”

  The valet’s face showed a strange fleeting expression, something that did not escape Jacques’ quick notice.

  “Gold has been stolen? And your snuffbox?” repeated Petrine.

  “Yes,” Jacques said solemnly, noting Dominique’s great distress.

  Again he looked under the bed, then stood up, and stared out the window at churning gray clouds. From the courtyard, below he heard horses snort and whinny. I must not bring myself to confess to Dominique that no thief stole the purse, that it disappeared the very night of the ball, probably while I swayed in the arms of D’Ampie. Several times he ran his fingers through his hair. Shall I tell Dominique of the scroll?

  At last he turned to Dominique and Petrine.

  “I’ll pore through my belongings shortly. I suggest we leave this jumble of a room and go to the loft. To think. To talk.”

  Standing under the loft’s overhead window moments later, Jacques stared at the large empty room, then with Petrine at his side, spoke softly and intensely to Dominique.

  “Because Paris has relieved me of my name as well as most of my worldly assets, I intend to head to Rome. Lateran Rome has more scoundrels per square meter than any place in Europe. The princes of the Church relish the game of faro, and if I bank, we shall win. Despite the fact that great God is on their side.”

  Dominique did not seem pleased.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Jacques turned to his valet. “Let me further say, Petrine, that this woman must not go to a convent. She must accompany me and become a très elegant adventuress.”

  “Odd,” Dominique said. “I’ve decided that you, Jacques Girolamo Casanova, should accompany me to the convent and become a nun.”

  The two men howled.

  When the frivolity cooled, Jacques again spoke. “Now, Madame Tigress, knowing both choices—the convent or Rome—which do you prefer?”

  A forbidding luster in her eye, Dominique paced a wide circle while she talked, her arms tucked across her chest. She explained that she had never traveled more than one hour beyond Paris. She knew that a long journey would mean different languages, diverse religions, strange habits.

  She affirmed that she knew several languages, but that was little help when dialects were spoken. She didn’t know the roads or the customs, or even the measurements. And the different systems of money might make her head fog.

  “I’m ignorant in the ways of the world!” she blurted out.

  Listening to her fears, Jacques chafed. Tiny specks of dust hovered stock-still in the air until he, after a wait, dug into his jacket pocket. “Come here, please. I’ve decided to share my prospects, Fragoletta. To do so at this instant,” he said, astonishing himself.

  Petrine and Dominique both stepped closer.

  For several minutes, Jacques made a showing of the Vicomte’s scroll—translating the esoteric verses and pointing out the intriguing symbols, all the while adding as much invigorating emotion as he could muster. “Inestimable treasure” was uttered several times during his talk.

  “I sincerely believe my room was not ransacked for gold,” he said, “nor for my snuffbox. The thief’s target was this scroll. For this treasure riddle from Vicomte de Fragonard—which sat right in my coat pocket!”

  Noting Petrine’s wide eyes, Jacques was confronted with Dominique’s knitted brow.

  “I know,” he said. “The riddle is mystifying. But, Fragoletta, taking a cue from the Vicomte, we must begin our search with the Knights Templar, an extinct military arm of the Roman Catholic Church. And because the center of the Church lies in Rome, it’s there that we’ll uncover information about the Templars and proceed.”

  “My master’s brilliance will prevail. I’d wager it,” Petrine said, turning to Dominique. His full, round face burned with fervor.

  The loft seemed to shrink in size as Jacques’ eyes blazed with newfound eagerness. He spoke in one long breath. “I’ll study this with utmost attentiveness, and we shall triumph. The old gentleman has set us upon a quest for riches. His scroll will guide us. I say to you both, this is our main chance. We, a brave band of adventurers. In pursuit of an inestimable treasure. With thoughts like these, my heart is afire. If you, too, Dominique, have a truly venturesome spirit, then the quest, the riches to be gained, or both shall propel your spirit aloft with my own.”

  When Jacques’ hands dropped to his side, Dominique reached and held them. Her eyes moistened. “It’s a true and rare gift to rouse men and women. I do possess a venturesome soul, Jacques mia. And my soul is willing to sail aloft.”

  “Good news! Great news! A nun no more,” Jacques laughed and laughed. Kissing her hand, he then turned to Petrine. “It’s decided. We’re given over to the enterprising spirit.”

  “A treasure hunt!” cried the valet.

  The three broke into a spontaneous dance until the hot sun shining through the window forced its conclusion. All sat down.

  Jacques watched Dominique. He knew that without coaxing she would offer Francesco’s commission money for the venture.

  Curious that it vexed him so to use the woman. She gives—and expects little in return. So different. And what do I do? Use my dead brother’s wife, this unfortunate woman, for gain.

  - 21 -

  ALL POSSESSIONS WERE PACKED THE NEXT MORNING as swiftly as the flick of a mare’s tail, and at the behest of his master, Petrine trundled trunks and the mahogany sword case to their destination, a coach station in the Faubourg Saint Germain.

  By four o’clock, Jacques marched back and forth beneath the station sign Loueur de carrosses. A pair of men walking past tipped their hats to Dominique but moved quickly on when Jacques’ surly expression hurried them away. Thrusting his hand at Petrine, he emphatically counted five fingers. “Five days to Lyons. From there to Turino, to Florence, thence to Rome. I say again, a diligence is our one and only choice.”

  “Permit me to say, sir, that on that coach I’ll have to ride topside, and the roof makes me afraid, deathly afraid.”

  “Tie yourself to the roof.”

  “I shrivel at the thought.”

  “Then ride in the great basket in the rear of the diligence with the chickens and rich peasants.”

  “The rumble is too hot in the dead of summer, master.”

  “Then ride like the poor peasants, rent your own ox and cart, and be damned, you ronyon.”

  The Spaniard’s nostrils flared. “Maybe for the trip I could hire on as a postilion,” he fumed.

  “Yes, that suits you, Petrine. Postilions frequently ride drunk, are mostly untrained, and are universally thought to be dishonest.”

  Now Dominique interceded and, with comforting words and a bit of logic, ended the squabble.

  Less than an hour later, the diligence set out to Lyons. Petrine rode on top while Jacques and Dominique sat inside opposite three male passengers.

  After brief introductions, one of the travelers voiced an opinion.

  “I, for one, am grateful we travel in our diligence and not that clanking carabas we just passed.”

  “As am I,” said another, straightening his jacket. “The carabas is nothing but a cage atop a wagon.”

  “Exactly,” said the first traveler. “But if you ask me, it’s criminal that twenty or more peasants should be allowed to crowd into that cage—”

  “When it could carry a hundred,” said a third man.

  Jacques and another passenger laughed, ignoring Dominique’s scowl of contempt.

  “Dear acquaintances,” persisted the swarthy fellow, “the clanking carabas runs twice a day between Paris and Versailles. And twice a day in my youth, the steep iron ladder up to the carabas provided me rousing entertainment.”

  Jacques leaned forward.

  “That ladder,” snorted the fellow while he ligh
tly elbowed the passengers at his side, “forced the ladies, young and old, to show their thighs and much, much more.”

  All the men in the coach brayed in unison.

  Dominique glared.

  The trip progressed, and the swarthy passenger nattered on, striving to prove he knew everything worth knowing.

  Jacques was growing irritable, knowing he couldn’t abide the lout the four hours to Fontainebleau, let alone all the way to Rome. He found an opening and initiated his own conversation.

  “I’m excited, Dominique, for the joys ahead. In Rome we’ll have our own carriage,” he said, glancing sideways at the lout, “and we’ll surely parade, dear Fragoletta, on the corso.”

  Dominique’s green eyes grew bright.

  “Or perhaps on the Marina di Chiaia in Naples,” smiled the lout. “Has a gentleman ever taken you there?” he leered at Dominique. “Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are the days to be seen.” The man brushed off his red-heeled shoes with a flick of his hand and went on talking.

  The coach was perhaps halfway to Fontainebleau when Jacques, after a brief but pithy conversation with Dominique, received a stern upbraiding from the lout.

  “Actually, what you say makes very little sense, so if—”

  Jacques barked. “If I were to make sense, I would most probably be the sole man in Europe who does.”

  Dominique laughed.

  “Moreover, to make sense in this lifetime is not my purpose. There are some things so divine, so mysterious—such as love, such as life itself—that it doesn’t profit a man to try to make sense of them. My advice, monsieur, is to suspect everything that is presented as rational and sensible.”

  The passengers straightened up in their seats. Feeling that he had won the battle, Jacques set out to win the war.

  “Atop this diligence, my man Petrine is finding the motions of the coach akin to a tossing sea, something his stomach cannot abide. With each pitch and toss, his wrists turn white from the ropes that bind him to his roof seat. The rope around his ribs, of course, does no good for his guts either. But most men have need of just such an experience to temper their will and wit and thus discover their feeling for the world and their true place in it.”

  “Not long ago,” the lout interrupted, “I had the exceptional idea of installing a stabilizing hold bar atop a diligence. No one has yet shown interest in my practical invention. Probably ten years ahead of its time. But if in the future a diligence doesn’t possess a hold bar for passengers,” he addressed Jacques, “you—as well your valet—might be lashed to the coach top—so as to find your true place in the world.” The lout dashed off a smile.

  Jacques’ ears exploded with a screeching din until he felt Dominique’s hand squeeze his. He bit his lip hard, trying to quell his desire to challenge the insulting fool to a duel or, at the least, to throw him out the window, when at that very moment, the diligence lurched to a halt. Fontainebleau.

  While a dozen or so women vendors surrounded the coach hawking scissors and knives, Jacques determined to favor Dominique and himself.

  He kept a casual distance from the lout as he entered the coach house, but when the man stepped into the large privy, Jacques quickly and quietly entered behind him, making sure no one else was inside. When the lout began to relieve his bladder Jacques slipped his dagger from its sheath, grasped the blade tightly, and with the pommel struck the man on the back of the head. The man lurched forward, hit the wall, then quickly plopped to the floor, spewing a stream of urine high in the air.

  Jacques sheathed his weapon and congratulated himself. “For this I should be thanked—nay, rewarded.” He stepped over the lout, on his back in a puddle of piss, and looked about. Then in a swift motion, he hunkered down and began rifling the man’s pockets, until finding what he sought, he wrapped his fingers around the purse and removed it.

  Before prancing out the privy door, Jacques emptied the purse’s few coins into his pocket, save one which he proffered to the driver, whom he found by the coach.

  “Monsieur’s efforts,” Jacques reported, “have been abundantly rewarded. He’ll be staying on in Fontainebleau and instructed me to offer you this.” Jacques pressed the coin into the man’s hands.

  Not one of the coach passengers peeped a word when the gallow-faced lout failed to appear and the driver cried, “Whip up, postilion.”

  - 22 -

  “IN FRANKNESS, DEAR FRIEND, you look older.”

  “You must remember it’s not what a man looks like, dear Casanova. It’s how he feels,” said Cardinal de Bernis. “And I feel like a centaur.” From the edge of his chair, the churchman leaned across the expansive oak desk toward Jacques. “Why, when last we saw each other … in Paris … I—”

  “You’d acquired the sheath from St. Peter’s knife, one of the nails from the true cross, as well as Prester John’s big toe—rock hard, of course, since it was centuries old.” Jacques winked. “Those relics, as I recall, were to bring a pretty penny to a lowly bishop’s purse.”

  “Unfortunately they fattened the Pope’s coffers,” smirked the churchman. “But as recompense, the Most Holy Father—who continually bemoans the dissoluteness of the age—offered me a position here in Rome as a cardinal. Prester John’s big toe smoothed my advancement.”

  Jacques laughed. “And now I sit across from the majestic Cardinal de Bernis and tremble in awe.”

  “As well you should, my young friend.”

  “Consider, then, that I have nothing in this world but the good grace of the goddess Fortune. And an adventuress with whom I travel—and who shall not hinder our private debauches.”

  “But the goddess Fortune. She has abandoned you—is that what I sense?”

  Jacques nodded reluctantly. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  Cardinal de Bernis, his bulk enswathed in scarlet, leaned back in his chair. “In Paris I said I’d write you letters of introduction if ever you came to Rome.” He adjusted the scarlet biretta over his white wig, then in a grand gesture tore them both off and threw them on the desk. He scratched his scalp fiercely. “I hadn’t known you’d want to visit the Pope himself.”

  “Benedict, you probably know, was my master and I his student in my seminary days.” With his fingers, Jacques brushed his cheek. “And although I do have a special request for His Holiness, I’ll not beg the man for money,” he joked.

  “Anon, anon,” answered the fat clergyman. “You know, of course, that any Christian is at liberty to appear before the Pope once the Pontiff opens his door?” Staring at Jacques, the cardinal tapped on his desk. “Something in this smells of urgency,” he said. “My advice to thee? Do not be in a hurry in this agitated city. Rome is a silly woman, with indolence being one of her primary vices. Even the Vatican cannot escape her slothfulness.”

  “A dwindling purse hastens my actions.”

  “Your misfortune has a great deal to do with the merciless French society about which I warned you, doesn’t it?”

  “Do I dare mention Marquise D’Ampie—on her back—in a garden?”

  The cardinal returned a throaty laugh. “When you wrote from Paris, you might have included the scandalous details,” the cardinal said. “The sweltering man in scarlet who sits before you wants details. Tawdry details. None of which, I assure you, shall I repeat to the Pope—when I request an audience for you.”

  Jacques smiled. “I thank you, Your Complacency.”

  Both men joined in jolly laughter that rang through the hallways of the holy Vatican. Jacques stood, then bowed deeply. “And may I congratulate you, Your Eminence, on your promotion to cardinal?”

  “It goes without saying that I deserve the admiration, if not the position.” The clergyman threw back his head in a cackle, coughed a raw cough, and slapped his wig and biretta back on his pate.

  ***

  At the inn early the following morning, Jacques smiled when he opened the note Cardinal de Bernis had sent: “You will meet Pope Benedict at Palazzo di Monte Cavallo, the summer residence
of the Pontiff. Cardinal Allesandro Albani, Imperial Ambassador in Rome, is assigned to conduct you to Benedict.”

  Jacques readied himself, gave minor instructions to Petrine, and sat briefly with Dominique. He told her of his friendship with Benedict from long ago and spoke in vague terms of an earnest request he would make to the Pontiff. Dominique was disappointed to stay at the inn but reminded herself that she knew little Italian, something that might hamper the mission. Jacques bid her adieu with a long kiss, which he hoped hid the slim mistrust he’d had of the woman since the debacle at Grimani’s fête.

  As soon as he left the lodgings, he began to chart his stratagem—how to launch his subtle diversion, where to direct his fusillade—in a word, how to trick His Holiness, the Pope.

  Jacques knew that the smokescreen he planned—his request to the Pope to reenter Venice—could easily be read as impudence, and at the smallest nod from the Venetian State Inquisitori, the Pontiff might, with a papal ordinance, demand he leave Rome.

  This request to the cleric, however, was a risk worth taking—for Jacques’ true objective was access to the Index librorum prohibitorum, the Church’s ‘Index of Forbidden Books.’ As certain books were condemned by the Church, so, too, were the Knights Templar condemned. In searching the Index, Jacques hoped to gain esoteric, noteworthy knowledge of the Templars.

  He had a starting point for his search but, he worried, perhaps the ending point as well.

  ***

  Jacques, bedecked in his best attire, sat in Imperial Ambassador Albani’s meticulously arranged office. The portly cardinal spoke with great solemnity.

  “I am instructed to introduce you to the Pontifex Maximus, he who bridges the void between this world and—”

  “The kingdom that is not of this world,” Jacques repeated in unison with the cardinal, thankful at last for his school days in seminary.