Manon Balletti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manon Balletti (1740-1776) was the daughter of Italian actors performing in France and lover of the legendary womanizer Giovanni Giacomo Casanova. She was only ten years old when she first met him; mostly because she happened to be the daughter of Silvia Balletti, an actress of the Comédie Italienne company and also lover of Casanova, and younger sister of Casanova's closest friend.
The lovers started their relationship when Casanova was thirty-two years old and Manon was seventeen. (Although Manon's mother constantly brought male actors into the house, Manon was of a pure nature and remained a virgin.) She wrote forty-two letters full of love and deep feelings for him; a well-known quote from these letters describes Casanova as: "My lover, my husband, my friend, whatever you like". Despite the fact that Casanova was deeply in love with Manon, his sexual passions caused him to be unfaithful, causing their three-year relationship to have numerous ups and downs. Yet it was said that poor Manon would still await her lover's return from his escapades at their home, found in Rue du Petit-Lion-St. Sauveur. Manon was at the time engaged to her clavichord teacher, but broke it off at Casanova's request, thus starting a new engagement with him. Unfortunately, this did not keep him from having various sexual relations with other women, yet Manon remained ever faithful to him. It is found in his memoirs how regretful he felt for being so unkind to her when having these many affairs.
It once happened that Casanova was imprisoned after he was sued by creditors in Paris. One might think that Manon had had enough and left him there, yet she sent a pair of diamond earrings with which she bought him out. But Casanova did not learn from his mistakes, and caused Manon to finally break their engagement. She returned his portrait and his letters, causing Casanova to become devastated. Even though after this incident he remained seducing women, he believed he would one day return to Manon and have a steady relationship and settle down with her. Alas, Manon married the architect Jacques-François Blondel a short while after.
Life did not smile down upon poor Manon. Her marriage was short-lived, passing away at the tender age of thirty six. Casanova wrote down in his memoirs that he believed his behaviour shortened her life.
