biography
| name: |
Lespinasse, Julie
|
| |
in full Julie-Jeanne-Éléanore de Lespinasse
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pronunciation:
[lespeenas]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1732–76)
|
| biography:
| Salon hostess and ‘femme de lettres’, born in Lyon, SC France. The natural child of the Comtesse d'Albon, she spent some time as governess of her mother's legitimate daughter. She was invited to Paris by Madame du Deffand, a great Parisian literary hostess, where she set up her own salon in 1764. She was later joined by the philosopher Jean Le Rond d'Alembert who fell in love with her. Her Lettres (1809) show her deep feelings for the Comte de Guibert, and she died broken-hearted, her love for him unrequited. She left her letters to him to d'Alembert. Denis Diderot wrote of her in his Rêve de d'Alembert. |
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