Chapter VII of Casanova’s memoirs begins with the beguiling heading ‘My Blunders in the French language’, it being an eternal requirement of foreign wits visiting Paris (see, for example, the Sarah Jessica Parker character in an episode of Sex and the City), to show how inferior Parisians make even sophisticates feel.
Casanova – who had a knack of getting to know everybody who mattered – got himself invited to see an Italian opera at Fontainebleau, where he would be able to hobnob with the court, and found himself sitting under Madame de Pompadour’s box. Pompadour was a former courtesan and lover of Louis XV, so was one of the most influential people in France. Casanova was a womaniser, spy, a freemason and a magician, and was to be imprisoned for witchcraft in 1755 in Venice (he was not just a sycophant; Casanova really needed friends in high places).
One of the opera singers sang a bit shrilly, and Casanova snorted with laughter, as a Venetian would. One of Pompadour’s companions (dressed as a knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost), sardonically enquired of Casanova what country he came from, to which Casanova replied ‘Venice’. The knight then said he himself had laughed in Venice during operas, to which Casanova said no one would have objected. Perhaps this was not the wittiest of exchanges, but it amused Pompadour (maybe you had to be there) who asked Casanova if he was indeed from Venice ‘down there’: Casanova replied that Venice was ‘up’ in relation to Paris, and there followed much jolly banter in the courtly box as to whether Venice was up or down in relation to Paris. Casanova was right, the court agreed.
Casanova was careful not to laugh any more, but blew his nose ‘often’, attracting the attention again of the knight, who turned out to be Marshall Richelieu (grandnephew of the Cardinal). Richelieu suggested that a window might be open, and Casanova – by now struggling a bit in this epic contest of wit – mispronounced a French word in reply, and the court fell about laughing, in the traditional French response to mispronunciation. Casanova made a quick recovery with an off-colour crack about an actresses’ legs, which included (he honestly records) an unintentional but fitting pun, thus establishing him as a formidable wit. He became a popular figure about town, and. as he proudly said, his ‘jeu de mots’ became ‘celebrated’. Such were the joys of the Ancien Regime.
What Happened Next
Casanova’s encounter with Pompadour is irresistibly reminiscent of the Monty Python Oscar Wilde sketch. They bumped into each other later, in 1757, after Casanova returned to Paris having escaped from prison in Venice. Casanova records that the ‘fair marquise’ asked how his exile was and hoped that he would stay in France, indeed would help him stay. Casanova stammered his gratitude. Casanova at this time was busy with various madcap schemes, including inventing the state lottery, and eventually fled France in 1760 to escape his debtors. He may have written part of the libretto for Mozart’s Don Juan in 1787, and developed a taste for dressing up in women’s clothes (his great and only love, Henriette, was also very likely a spy and liked to dress up as a man).