Giacomo Casanova this crime for lack of evidence, but by this time, he had already fled from Venice. Escaping to Parma, Casanova entered into a three-month affair with a Frenchwoman he named "Henriette", perhaps the deepest love he ever experienced—a woman who combined beauty, intelligence, and culture. In his words, "They who believe that a woman is incapable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of the day have never known an Henriette. The joy which flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms at
Giacomo Casanova was in her thirteenth year. She had nowhere the definitive mark of puberty." (III, 196–7; X, 116–17). In 1774, when he was almost fifty, Casanova encountered in Trieste a former lover, the actress Irene, now accompanied by her nine-year-old daughter. "A few days later she came, with her daughter, who pleased me ("qui me plut") and who did not reject my caresses. One fine day, she met with Baron Pittoni, who loved little girls as much as I did ("aimant autant que moi les petites filles"), and took a liking to Irene’s girl, and asked the mother to do him