A Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant

Author:Andrea di Robilant [Robilant, Andrea di]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307424556
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2009-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER Seven

Early on April 4, as a new day was breaking over Paris, Giustiniana sneaked out of the Hôtel de Hollande wrapped in a cloak, the hood pulled over her head. She took a horse-drawn cab to a nearby church, paid the coachman, got into a second cab, and had herself driven to yet another church. From there she took a third cab and exited the city from the eastern Porte Saint-Antoine, leaving an erratic trail behind her to confound any pursuer. At full gallop, the coachman drove her out to a Benedictine convent in the small village of Conflans, some two leagues beyond the city limits.1

The abbess, Henriette de Mérinville, was expecting Giustiniana. She took her in under the pseudonym of Mlle de la Marne and assigned her to a small room in her own private apartment. The past few weeks had been especially hard, and Giustiniana immediately felt relieved in the company of this warm, generous woman who went by the religious name of Mother Eustachia. It was so peaceful. From her window Giustiniana looked down to the valley where the Marne flowed gently into the Seine. Angelic chants rose from the chapel and drifted to her quarters. Everything around her, even the crisp cleanliness of her simple room, had a soothing effect on her frayed nerves. At last she felt safe behind the thick convent walls.

The strain had started long before the marriage preparations. When Giustiniana had left Venice in September 1758, she had been keeping a secret she had not shared with anyone—not even Andrea. She continued to hide it day after day, in solitude, concealing her growing despair behind her infectious charm. She coped in silence with violent bouts of nausea during the long trip to France. In Paris, frequent spells of drowsiness forced her to seek refuge in the privacy of her small room. Yet she threw herself into the social mêlée with as much energy as she could muster, and she made her way into La Pouplinière’s heart with the kind of recklessness that comes from sheer desperation. But she could not hide her condition indefinitely: by the end of January she was already five months pregnant. She decided to confide her secret to the one person who might spare her the sermonizing and help her find a practical way out of her trouble.

After his triumphant return from Holland, Casanova had moved out to Petite Pologne, a small community northwest of Paris, just beyond the city walls. He lived in style: he rented a large house called Cracovie en Bel Air, with two gardens, stables, several baths, a good cellar, and an excellent cook, Mme de Saint Jean, who went by the name of “La Perle.” He kept two carriages and five very fast enragés, the mettlesome horses bred in the king’s stables and known for their furious speed—one of Casanova’s greatest pleasures, he tells us in his memoirs, was “driving fast”2 through the streets of Paris.

Initially Giustiniana was somewhat dismissive of Casanova. She invited him over to the Hôtel de Hollande, but she did not encourage his advances.

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