Volume 8 — JACQUES CASANOVA CHEVALIER DE SEINGALT

Born in Venice in 1725, died probably in 1803; his father an actor, his mother a shoemaker's daughter; educated for the priesthood; expelled in disgrace from the seminary; entered the Venetian military service, and began a career of intrigue and adventure as chronicled in his memoirs; wandered to almost every quarter of Europe, living by his wits as journalist, doctor, mesmerist, and diplomat; effected an entrance to many high social circles and was presented to Catharine of Russia, Louis XV, Frederick the Great, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Madame de Pompadour; arrested in Venice as a spy in 1755, imprisoned and escaped; afterward honored by Italian princes and decorated by the Pope; became librarian to Count Waldstein in Bohemia in his fifty-seventh year; his "Memoirs" notable as a picture of manners and morals at their worst, chronicled with the utmost frankness.