There he was as gay and as dissolute as ever, but in his intervals of spare time he wrote a refutation of a work by Amelot de la Houssaye upon the condition of the Republic. He had hoped it would reinstate him in public opinion, but it failed to do so, and before long he was denounced to the government as a spy and thrown into prison. In the 'Récit de sa Captivité' (1788) he himself has told the dramatic story of his confinement in the garret of a ducal palace, and of his wonderful escape. The hot Italian sun beating down on the leaden roof added to his discomfort, and he was too daring and too ingenious to suffer long in patience. With the aid of an iron bolt which he had sharpened, he bored a hole through the wall of his cell and gained access to another prisoner, Father Balbi. For a long time they plotted together, and at last after many efforts and dangers they extricated themselves by way of the roofs.
This feat added greatly to his fame. He was fêted and courted everywhere, and his extravagances set the fashions for years. But in spite of the admiration he excited, he was too dangerous a citizen to be allowed long in a place. He was expelled from Varsovia in consequence of a duel. Then Paris, and later Madrid, drove him away.
His life of excesses had broken his health, when in 1782 he attached himself to the Count of Waldstein, a German prince whom he followed into Bohemia. Soon after, he began the famous 'Memoires,' his chief literary achievement. He wrote several historical works, a translation in verse of the Iliad, and many political sketches. Others of his writings, such as 'Eighty Years Spent among the Inhabitants of the Interior of the Globe,' show him possessed of a lively imagination. But he evinced especial zest in the preparation of the 'Memoires.' In a style as audacious as his life, strong and sparkling with wit, he told the strange story of his career. He reflects the social habits of his time, the contemporary point of view.
He lived on in Bohemia until he was seventy-eight, and then he died at Dux, retaining to the end what Janin terms "his marvelous instinct for vice and corruption."
CASANOVA'S ESCAPE FROM THE DUCAL PALACE
From 'The Escapes of Casanova and Latude from Prison'
The greatest comfort to a man in suffering is the hope of a speedy release. He sighs for the moment when he shall see the end of his woes; he fancies that his wishes can hasten it on, and would do anything on earth to know what hour is fixed for the cessation of his misery: but no one can tell at what moment an event will happen which depends on the determination of another, unless that person has announced it. But the sufferer, who is weak and impatient, is predisposed to be superstitious. "God," says he, "must know the very moment when my pain will cease; and God may permit that it should be revealed to me, never mind how." When he has once fallen into this train of argument, he no longer hesitates to try his fortune by any means his fancy may dictate, if he is more or less inclined to believe in the revelations of the oracle he happens to select. This frame of mind is not conspicuously unlike that of the greater number of those who were wont to consult the Pythia, or the oaks of Dodona, or of those who, even in our own day, study the Cabbala, or seek the revelation they hope for in a verse of the Bible or a line of Virgil;—this indeed has made the Sortes Virgilianæ famous, of which many writers tell us; or finally, of those who are firmly convinced that their difficulties will all be solved by the fortuitous or premeditated arrangement of a mere pack of cards.
I was in this state of mind. But not knowing what means to employ to compel Fate to reveal through the Bible the end in store for me—that is to say, the hour at which I should recover the incomparable blessing of liberty—I resolved to consult the divine poem of Messer Ludovico Ariosto, 'Orlando Furioso,' which I knew by heart, and in which I delighted up in my cell. I worshiped the genius of that great poet, and thought him far better fitted than Virgil to tell my fortune. With this idea I wrote down a question addressed to the imaginary intelligence, asking in which canto of Ariosto's poem I should find the day of my deliverance prophesied. Afterwards I composed an inverted pyramid of the numbers derived from the words in the question, and by subtracting nine from each pair of figures I had nine for a remainder. I concluded that the prophecy I sought must be in the ninth canto. I pursued the same method to arrive at the line and stanza containing the oracle, and I found seven as the number of the stanza, and one for the line.