The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, November 17, 2025

Notably: Casanova was a great admirer of the Frenchman, too great at times, and jealous. He wanted to be Voltaire but well knew, for all his wit and occasional dabbles in philosophy and enlightened libertinism, how far short he fell. Casanova enslaved a 13-year-old girl in Russia and called her Zaire after one of Voltaire’s more famous tales. He once stopped at the Hotel du Roule in Paris, a famously chic whorehouse with “good wines, excellent beds,” in Casanova’s recollection, run by a madam who called herself Madame Paris, who enjoyed the police’s protection, and whose girls had entertained Voltaire previously, though he’d not been able to perform (Casanova did). In 1760 Casanova visited Voltaire in Geneva. The two spent three days together but Casanova didn’t leave on the best terms, his jealous resentments getting the better of him. He’d end up writing reams against his old master, only regretting it all toward the end of his life as he wrote his Story of My Life (see below). So while Casanova wrote copious notes about his encounter and narrated it in his memoir, it isn’t “overstepping of the limits of the real,” in Poe’s phrase, to further imagine them discussing Donald Trump, as I asked Gemini to do for me. Here was the result, pretty close to character: 

Casanova: (Sipping a divine, non-existent chocolate) My dear Arouet, you look positively distressed. Does the news from this American republic continue to trouble your Enlightenment ideals?

Voltaire: (Frowning over an ephemeral copy of the New York Times) Trouble me? It confirms every dark suspicion I ever harbored about the canaille—the rabble—and the leaders they choose when Reason slumbers! This ‘Trump.’ His entire oeuvre is a rejection of all we fought for: tolerance, intellectual discourse, and the separation of a statesman’s dignity from the coarseness of a street brawl.

Casanova: (A casual shrug) But, my friend, look at the spectacle! It is magnificent. You speak of dignity; I see raw, irresistible power. The man understands the human heart better than any King advised by a score of philosophers. He appeals directly to their vanity, their grievances, their sheer boredom with competence. He is a genius of the theatre, a master of self-mythology. I would have adored to sit at his gaming table.

Voltaire: A genius of the theater? Casanova, he is a tyrannical buffoon who mocks liberty! Where is the enlightened despotism that protects the sensible few from the foolish many? His very language is a battering ram against all good faith and verifiable fact. “Écrasez l’infâme!”—that was my cry against superstition. His supporters hail him as a prophet!

Casanova: Ah, but your infâme was The Church—a cold, organized edifice. This man is an adventurer, a flamboyant rogue who charms the masses by showing them they don’t need to be modest, polite, or even truthful. He is like a beautiful, chaotic Venetian masked ball, where everyone, from the lowliest peasant to the highest lord, feels permission to play the fool—and love the part! Is this not, in a perverse way, a kind of extreme liberty?

Voltaire: Liberty without wisdom is merely license for destruction! I championed the right to speak, but also the duty to think! This man has made a virtue of not thinking. He threatens to dismantle the institutions that prevent him from being King Louis XV, and his faithful applaud the very shackles he forges for them!

Casanova: (Smiling, tapping his chin) But my dear Arouet, he has found the true secret of governance in the modern age: Entertainment is authority. The people do not want a rational administration; they want a captivating story. They want to feel seen by a man who refuses to play by the rules they themselves are weary of. He is the ultimate disreputable rake, and the world is his conquest. Tell me, if you were still alive, would you not be forced to write a furious, brilliant pamphlet about him every week?

Voltaire: (A reluctant half-smile breaks his stern expression) Ah, Casanova, you always find the dramatic core in the political abscess. Yes… I would be writing. I would be exiled, imprisoned, and writing still. His existence is an offense to logic, but I confess, the sheer audacity of the comedy is… unprecedented.

Casanova: Precisely. The man may be a disaster for political order, but he is a glorious boon for the human comedy. A true adventurer always seeks out the grandest, most dangerous stage. And in 2025, that stage is undoubtedly the American Presidency.

Voltaire: A very modern tragedy, then, dressed as a very old farce.

Casanova: Or perhaps a grand, unforgettable seduction. One must simply enjoy the show while it lasts.

—P.T.

I left quite happy to have on this last day brought this athlete [Voltaire] to his senses; but I was left with a bad mood against him which forced me for ten years in a row to criticize everything old and new that I read that this great man had given, and was giving, to the public. I repent of it today, although when I read what I published against him68 I find that I was right in my censorship. I had to keep quiet, respect him, and doubt my judgments. I had to reflect that without the taunts with which he displeased me on the third day, I would have found him sublime in everything. This reflection alone should have silenced me; but an angry man always believes he is right. Posterity reading me will put me among the Zoyles, and the very humble reparation that I make to him today will perhaps not be read.

–From Casanova’s Story of My Life (1798).

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