A Venetian Affair (25 page)

Sartine was an understanding man; he knew the ways of the world. He listened carefully to what the countess said. It was all he needed to know; they could count on his discretion. A few days later Casanova was summoned for a formal deposition before the presiding judge, who was none other than Sartine himself. He admitted going to the Opera Ball wearing a black domino on the night that was mentioned in the suit but denied ever paying a visit to Reine Demay. As for Giustiniana, he said, “neither I nor any member of her family ever thought she was pregnant.”
¹⁵

Sartine spared Casanova an arrest warrant but advised him not to leave Paris until the case was closed. For good measure, Casanova dropped a handsome bribe of three hundred louis into the lap of the court clerk. Shortly after his testimony, Castelbajac sidled up to Casanova with an offer: Demay was ready to retract her accusation—claiming she had mistaken his identity—in exchange for a hundred louis. The midwife appeared at his house in Petite Pologne a few days later in the company of a conniving witness and, after taking a look at Casanova, said loudly that he was not the man she was looking for: “I have made a mistake.”
¹⁶
She was not the only one trying to make some quick money from the sordid episode. Mrs. Anna’s lawyer, M. Vauversin, also stepped into the fray, secretly offering Casanova advice on how to counter his client’s suit against him.

Delighted at the opportunity his enemies were handing him, Casanova sent a detailed report to Sartine on all the financial shenanigans. In short order, Demay was arrested and imprisoned at the Grand Châtelet for attempted extortion; Castelbajac was sent to the Bicêtre, a prison just south of Paris, for his complicity in the affair; and M. Vauversin was temporarily disbarred, much to Mrs. Anna’s discomfiture.

Casanova could breathe again, but despite the arrest of two of the claimants he was still not cleared and the two cases that had been brought against him remained pending. Giustiniana’s disappearance continued to be a topic of gossip in Paris throughout the spring of 1759. “You would not believe, sir, the noise this affair has made here,” one of Andrea’s correspondents wrote. Several weeks after her escape “she still remains the news of the day in a country that usually thrives only on novelty. If poor Miss Wynne had wanted people to know she was in town, I can assure you she would have been very satisfied, for I can’t remember anyone being talked about so much.”
¹⁷

Inside the court, Casanova had testified that pregnancy was not the cause of Giustiniana’s disappearance. But of course the talk outside the court was that she was indeed expecting a child. How else could one explain her sudden bolting and, even more so, her refusal to emerge from hiding? Her own explanation—that she was running away from threats and a marriage she couldn’t face— simply did not make sense. The substance of Castelbajac and Reine Demay’s depositions soon became general knowledge. An anonymous and very derogatory pamphlet on Giustiniana made the rounds. Andrea’s name cropped up frequently in conversations around town as the presumed father. And La Pouplinière, of course, was made to look like a fool.

Inevitably, rumors about the causes of Giustiniana’s disappearance reached Venice as well. Andrea did not quite know what to believe. He had stopped receiving letters from her after she had gone into hiding. His friends were asking whether what they heard was true. He did not know what to say. Her mysterious behavior had left him defenseless in the face of the most insidious attacks. Utterly confused, he resorted to reading excerpts of some of Giustiniana’s earlier letters out loud to prove to others that she had harbored misgivings about the marriage and might well have fled out of sheer panic. But beyond defending Giustiniana’s honor, what was he to believe? Could it be that she was really pregnant? If so, who was the father?

Andrea’s attempts to get credible information from his friends in Paris were frustrated. “You must let me know once and for all precisely what has occurred,” he urged Casanova, to no avail. Farsetti was not much help either. He wrote to Andrea about Giustiniana’s “enemies” but never provided a convincing picture of what was actually going on, probably being in the dark himself. Farsetti seemed more interested in denigrating Casanova at every opportunity: “If she had never met that man or if she had sent him away as I told her to do, she would be married by now.”
¹⁸

Even more disquieting than Casanova’s prevarications and Farsetti’s petulant letters was the short note Ambassador Erizzo sent Andrea in reply to his frantic queries. Erizzo was a respected statesman, a senior member of the Venetian ruling class. Even though Andrea belonged to a younger generation, the ambassador always addressed him as one of his own. His harsh words must have weighed heavily on Andrea’s heart.

Esteemed Friend,

I had the honor of receiving two letters in which you urge me to
tell you what has happened to your beautiful Miss Wynne, who
has not written to you for many days, and who, to your surprise, is
beginning to be talked about in the most equivocal manner; and
so you would like me to give you an accurate report on what has
occurred. I very much wish I were in a position to oblige you; but
the anecdotes are numerous and of such a nature that I would be
compelled to write for two hours—and this after I have just finished writing a long dispatch. Suffice it to say that her conduct
was ridiculous and imprudent in the extreme, and if she had
sought advice from sensible people everything would have been
settled. I believe it is entirely superfluous to say more since it
would appear, if what I have been told is correct, that you are in a
better position to inform me than I am to inform you. It is
believed, among other things, that she has rushed to Venice or
wherever you might have told her to go. Please forgive me.
¹⁹

April turned into May. The days grew longer and warmer. The countryside around Conflans teemed with new life. Spring showers washed over the lush green hills and the air was sweet with the scent of lilac. Inside the convent, Giustiniana waited peacefully for the birth of her child. She had grown close to Mother Eustachia despite their difference in age; the abbess was nearly thirty years her senior. During their long conversations, she had talked to her as if to an older sister about her love for Andrea, the hardships they had faced together, her uncertainty about the future. Little by little the spiritual quality of the place had affected Giustiniana. She was more at ease with herself despite a natural trepidation as her labor approached. Many hours passed in prayer, and the amiable Father Jollivet often took her confession. It was a difficult time, but Mother Eustachia and Father Jollivet made her feel a little less alone.

At the end of May, Mother Eustachia informed Countess du Rumain and Casanova that Giustiniana had given birth to a baby boy. The delivery had not presented special problems, and the mother was in good health. No official record of the birth has survived. The boy’s destiny remains a mystery. Even his name is unknown. Mother Eustachia arranged for the child to be sent “to a place where he would be properly cared for”
²⁰
—perhaps a local peasant family or else an orphan’s home, as was the custom in such cases. Giustiniana never mentioned him in her correspondence. She certainly never spoke of him to Andrea. Only a handful of people knew what had happened at Conflans, and the secret would have died with them had Casanova not betrayed it in his memoirs some thirty years later.

Giustiniana could now reveal her whereabouts and go back to her family after a short period of recovery. But her return had to be negotiated with as much skill and diligence as had been used to organize her disappearance. As soon as she was fit to be seen in public again—albeit only behind the grille of the convent parlor— she wrote to her mother and told her where she was. Mother Eustachia also contacted Mrs. Anna, explaining that she had just discovered Giustiniana’s real identity. The letter, dated May 27, is a little triumph in the art of deception:

Mlle Justiniana Wynne finally opened up to me yesterday
evening. She told me, Madame, that you are presently living at
the Hôtel de Hollande, rue Saint-André-des-Arts. Had I known
this before, I could have spared you so many worries. She has
been with us ever since coming here on April 4. You mustn’t
begrudge me my taking her in. I did not dare expose a young
woman of her age and station to the dangers of wandering alone
in search of other communities, certain as I was that someone
would soon come to claim her. Yet nobody came to ask for her. . . .
She has seen no one in the parlor and has received no letters. She
has conducted herself with great piety here. She has a charming
character. I love her with all my heart, and I would be handing
her back with the greatest regret if I didn’t know it was for her
greater happiness. I would be delighted, Madame, to give you a
token of my respect at any time, and I have the honor of being
your very humble and very obedient servant.

Sister de Mérinville, abbess of Conflans
²¹

The letters drew a stream of people to Conflans. Mrs. Anna arrived at the convent the very next day. She was accompanied by M. de La Pouplinière, who had his personal train of followers: M. de Maisonneuve; his confidant, the Abbé de La Coste; and his notary, Maître Fortier, who had come to take a sworn deposition from Mother Eustachia in order to establish the exact date of Giustiniana’s arrival at the convent and the length of her stay. Father Jollivet also gave testimony that he had “taken confession many times” from Giustiniana.
²²
Amidst the general confusion, La Pouplinière advised Mrs. Anna to have notarized copies made of Mother Eustachia’s letter to her and Father Jollivet’s deposition as soon as she got back to Paris. It was important, he explained, to protect Giustiniana’s reputation with official documents.

Once the formalities were out of the way, the little crowd gathered by the grille, behind which Giustiniana was smiling coyly. There was a very emotional exchange. Giustiniana feigned surprise at what had been said about her in Paris during her absence. She acted bewildered when she was told that criminal charges had been brought against Casanova on her account. La Pouplinière led the conversation, and Giustiniana was struck by “the expressions and tears of the old man, who loves me to the extreme.” Her miraculous reappearance—the actual sight of her as she sat behind the grille, looking “even more beautiful than before”
²³
—so galvanized the
fermier général
that he saw no reason why the marriage could not go forward after all. Mrs. Anna announced that she was withdrawing her charges against Casanova now that her daughter had reappeared and the matter had been cleared up (that wasn’t enough for Casanova, who requested a written apology that he then had notarized). The other, more serious charge of attempted abortion was still in place, and the pending trial was a problem, of course. But La Pouplinière felt it was much simpler to clear Giustiniana’s position now that the truth was out. The wedding, he proclaimed as he took leave and headed back to Paris, would take place “as soon as the trial is done away with.”
²⁴

When her visitors had left, Giustiniana withdrew to her chamber to review the situation with Mother Eustachia. It had been a turbulent and confusing day. She was baffled by La Pouplinière’s plan to go ahead with the wedding. Even though she was no longer pregnant and there was no practical obstacle to the marriage, she had had plenty of time during her long seclusion to reflect on the wisdom of that enterprise. The idea of being thrown back into the clutches of La Pouplinière’s avaricious relations terrified her. Perhaps more important, her stay at Conflans had changed her: the extravagant notion of marrying the old
fermier général
seemed to belong to another life.

Giustiniana and Mother Eustachia agreed that there was no need to rush back to Paris. Besides, if she left the convent she might well be called to testify in the proceedings that were continuing against Casanova. Even worse was the possibility that Reine Demay—who had been released after spending three weeks in jail—might be asked to identify Giustiniana as the woman who had visited her in rue des Cordeliers on the infamous night of the Opera Ball in the company of Casanova. Better to allow La Pouplinière time to sort things out with the court officials and return once the proceedings were over.

In the following weeks Giustiniana gradually recovered her spirits as well as her slender silhouette. She was allowed out of the convent for short walks in the gardens, and she received regular visits at the grille from a doting La Pouplinière, as well as all the clamoring members of her family and her many friends. Toward the end of June her visitors planned a
fête
outside the convent to honor Mother Eustachia and the Benedictine nuns for looking after Giustiniana so well.

Andrea, meanwhile, was still very confused. Giustiniana was in a hurry to renew her correspondence with him in order to reassure him. As a gesture of goodwill, Mrs. Anna handed over to Giustiniana those of Andrea’s letters that she had intercepted during the previous weeks—most of which she had opened and read anyway. But she forbade her daughter to write to Andrea because she still suspected him of having had a hand in Giustiniana’s disappearance. Farsetti, terrified of incurring Mrs. Anna’s wrath, at first resisted Giustiniana’s pleas to act as her secret postman. Only at the end of June, during her final days at Conflans, did he finally agree to mail her first letter to Andrea since she had sneaked out of the Hôtel de Hollande nearly three months earlier.