that by their diligence he had been caught at work.

As soon as the dungeon was completed, Trenck was led back to it. It had been paved with enormous flagstones, and rendered impenetrable in every part. In one point his condition was amended. Only his ankle was chained to the wall; and though the links were twice as strong as before, the relief must have been considerable. While the smith was riveting the chain, Trenck vented his indignation in bitter reproaches, and tauntingly declared, that if they were to build their dungeon of steel it would be insufficient to retain him. The lofty tone of Trenck was prompted by a firm reliance upon the promised aid from the lieutenant. He waited anxiously for the day when his friend was to be on guard; and when that day arrived, his disappointment was extreme to see another officer instead of him. Week after week he hoped to see the man on whom his liberty depended, but he saw him no more. length he learned that the lieutenant had quitted the corps of grenadiers. The cause of his supposed friend's breach of faith he never discovered. It is not unlikely that the officer was intimidated, or disgusted, by what he might consider as the rash disclosures which Trenck had made. The defection was severely felt by the prisoner; gloom and sadness took possession of his heart.

At

Yet, while he was thus mourning over his ruined hopes, and looking forward to nothing but a life of monotonous incarceration and misery, he was on the eve of being gratified to the full extent of his wishes. On the 24th of December 1763, nine months after the close of the war, the day, to accelerate which he had made almost superhuman struggles, at last dawned upon him. Reichmann, the deputy governor, accompanied by several persons, entered his dungeon; their countenances were more cheerful than usual. "This time, my dear Trenck,' said Reichmann, I am the joyful messenger of good news. Prince Ferdinand has prevailed upon the king to let your irons be taken off.' Accordingly, to work went the smith. 'You shall also,' continued he, 'have a better apartment.' 'I am free, then,' said Trenck; but you are afraid to tell me too suddenly. Speak! fear not! I can moderate my transports.' "Then you are free!' was the reply. When the smith had ended his work Trenck was conducted to the guard-room, where he was congratulated by everybody, and took the oath which was administered to all state prisoners on such occasions. At the time of his liberation he was thirty-seven years of age, eleven years of which had been wasted in captivity -seventeen months at Glatz, and the remainder at Magdeburg.

pened to be one of the state inquisitors, and that worthy personage availed himself of his office to take vengeance on the offender. Convenient witnesses were not difficult to be found in Venice. Three men came forward as Casanova's accusers, and in their depositions they mingled a small portion of truth with much absurd falsehood. They swore that he ate meat on the prohibited days, and that he went to mass only to hear the music, two charges which no doubt were true. Their inventions, however, were more formidable than their facts. They swore vehemently that he was suspected of freemasonry; that the large sums lost by him in gaming, he obtained by selling to foreign ambassadors the state secrets, which he artfully wormed out of his patrician friends; and that he believed only in the devil, in proof of which last accusation they urged, that when he lost his money at play, he never, as all good Christians did, gave way to execrations against his Satanic majesty. His addiction to magical and cabalistical studies was also adduced as evidence of his heretical guilt.

On the morning of the 25th of July 1755, the head of the Venetian police entered the chamber of Casanova, roused him from sleep, demanded his books and papers, and bade the astonished man rise and follow him. When he was told he was arrested by order of the

he acknowledges that, on hearing that formidable and terrible name, he was overpowered, and that his wonted courage gave place to the most implicit obedience. Whilst the officer was securing the manuscripts and books, Casanova had his hair dressed, and put on a silken suit, as though he had been going to a ball instead of a prison. The papers and volumesamong the latter of which were his cabalistic books-being collected, he quitted the chamber with the head of the police, and was surprised to find that more than thirty policemen were in waiting.

'Is it not,' he sarcastically observes, 'extraordinary, that in England, where courage is innate, one man is considered sufficient to arrest another, while in my country, where cowardice has set up her home, thirty are required for the purpose? Probably a coward is still more one when he attacks than when he is attacked, and that makes the person assaulted bolder. The truth is, in Venice one man is often seen opposing twenty sbirri: he gives them a good beating, and escapes.'

Four only of the officers were retained by the chief, who proceeded in a gondola to his dwelling with the prisoner, and locked him up in a room, where he remained four hours. On his return, he informed Casanova that he was directed to convey him to the Camerotti - cells

which are known also by the name of I Plombi, from their being immediately under the leaden roof of the state prison. This prison was opposite to the ducal palace, on the canal called Rio di Palazzo, and was connected with it by a covered bridge, which was emphatically denominated the Bridge of Sighs. On reaching his destination, Casanova was presented to the secretary of the inquisitors, who merely cast a glance on him, and said, ‘It is he; secure him well.' He was then led up into a dirty garret, about six yards long and two broad, lighted through a hole in the roof. He supposed that he was to be confined there; but he was not to be so leniently dealt with. The jailor applied a large key to a strong, iron-bound door about three feet and a half high, in the centre of which was a grated hole eight inches square. While the jailor was doing this, the prisoner's attention was engaged upon a singular machine, made of iron, which was fixed in the wall. Its use was explained to him in a tone of levity accompanied by laughter, as though there had been some excellent joke in the matter. It was an instrument, similar to the Spanish garotte, for strangling, those who were condemned by the cruel inquisitors. After having received this consolatory explanation, he was ushered into his cell, which he could not enter without stooping till he was nearly bent double. The

door was closed on him, and he was asked through the grating what he would have to eat. The sudden calamity which had befallen him had deadened his appetite and soured his temper, and he sullenly replied that he had not yet thought about what he would have. The question was not repeated; he was left alone, listened to the keeper locking door after door, and then leaned against the grating in confused and gloomy meditation.

When he was a little recovered from the first shock, Casanova began to explore his dungeon. It was so low that he was obliged to stoop as he groped along, and there was neither bed, chair, nor table in it. There was nothing but a shelf, on which he deposited the silk mantle, hat, plume, and other finery in which he had so unseasonably arrayed himself. The place was involved in all but utter darkness. There was indeed a window, or rather aperture, of two feet square, but it was ingeniously contrived to admit the smallest possible quantity of light. Not only was it thickly checkered by broad iron bars, but immediately above it was a beam of eighteen inches in diameter, which crossed before the opening in the roof.

The heat now became so intolerable, that it drove him to the grating in the door, where he could also rest by leaning on his elbows. From this loop