Imagine, if you will, a
12-year-old boy in 18th century Amsterdam who is whisked away to the
mansion of the richest woman in France, where he is enrolled in the best boys’
school, given jewels and clothing and a pony.
A fairy tale? No, it’s history,
and a rather sad one. The boy was the son of Teresa Imer, a former lover of
Giacomo Casanova and the half-brother of Casanova’s illegitimate 5-year-old daughter.
Casanova took the boy to live with the 63-year-old heiress Jeanne de Lascaris d’Urfé
de Le Rouchefoucauld.
The Marquise d’Urfé entertained
such purportedly uncanny figures as the Conte de Saint-German, who claimed to
be several hundred years old; Franz Anton Mesmer, the pioneer in hypnosis; the
Conte di Cagliostro and Casanova, who claimed magical powers derived from the ancient
Hebrew secrets of the Cabala. Giuseppi Imer was obtained and pampered because
the Marquise was convinced Casanova could help her transplant her soul into the
body of a young boy and thereby make her immortal.
No wonder France had a revolution.
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