LESPINASSE, JULIE DE

born 1732, Lyon, France died May 23, 1776, Paris in full Julie-jeanne-lanore De Lespinasse hostess of one of the most brilliant and emancipated of Parisian salons and the author of several volumes of passionate letters that reveal her romantic sensibility and genuine literary gifts. The natural child of the comtesse d'Albon, she was sent to convent school and made governess to the marquise de Vichy, her mother's legitimate daughter. Madame du Deffand, one of the reigning aristocratic Parisian hostesses, recognized Mademoiselle de Lespinasse's intelligence and charm and persuaded her to come to Paris and assist at her literary salon from 1754 to 1764, when she became jealous of her younger companion's popularity and dismissed her. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse set up her own salon in the rue Saint-Dominique, and the philosopher and mathematician Jean Le Rond d'Alembert eventually joined her there; she nursed him through a serious illness but never returned his deep love for her. Instead, she was torn between her passions for unworthy men of fashionthe marquis de Mora and the comte de Guibert. Her Lettres (1809) show her intensely experienced emotions of love, remorse, and despair. She died brokenhearted as a result of her unrequited affection for Guibert, leaving d'Alembert the letters she had intended for Guibert. Denis Diderot wrote of her in his Rve de d'Alembert, which she requested him to suppress.