While Casanova’s Story of My Life fools its readers into thinking they are stepping into a world of perfumes, how can their surprising scarcity be accounted for ? Although they are featured in his magical burlesque practices, perfumes are, however, seldom associated with a woman or with eroticism, and the memory function of a smell is never staged. The very nature of Casanova’s writing and current presuppositions about the way his story ought to be read might help us understand these paradoxes.