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EPINAY, LOUISE FLORENCE PETRONILLE TA...

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 695 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EPINAY, See also:LOUISE See also:FLORENCE PETRONILLE TARDIEU D'ESCLAVELLES D' (1726-1783), See also:French writer, was See also:born at See also:Valenciennes on the 11th of See also:March 1726. She is well known on See also:account of her liaisons with See also:Rousseau and See also:Baron von See also:Grimm, and her acquaintanceship with See also:Diderot, D'See also:Alembert, D'See also:Holbach and other French men of letters. Her See also:father, Tardieu d'Esclavelles, a brigadier of See also:infantry, was killed in See also:battle when she was nineteen; and she married her See also:cousin See also:Denis See also:Joseph de La Live . d'Epinay, who was made a See also:collector-See also:general of taxes. The See also:marriage was an unhappy one; and Louise d'Epinay believed that the prodigality, dissipation and infidelities of her See also:husband justified her in obtaining a formal separation in 1749. She settled in the See also:chateau of La Chevrette in the valley of See also:Montmorency, and there received a number of distinguished visitors. Conceiving a strong See also:attachment for J. J. Rousseau, she furnished for him in 1756 in the valley of Montmorency a cottage which she named the "Hermitage," and in this See also:retreat he found for a See also:time the quiet and natural rural pleasures he praised so highly. Rousseau, in his Confessions, affirmed that the inclination was all on her See also:side; but as,' after her visit to See also:Geneva, Rousseau became her See also:bitter enemy, little See also:weight can be given to his statements on this point. Her intimacy with Grimm, which began in 1755, marks a turning-point in her See also:life, for under his See also:influence she escaped from the somewhat compromising conditions of her life at La Chevrette. In 1757–1759 she paid a See also:long visit to Geneva, where she was a See also:constant See also:guest of See also:Voltaire. In Grimm's See also:absence from See also:France (1775–1776), Madame d'Epinay continued, under the superintendence of Diderot, the See also:correspondence he had begun with various See also:European sovereigns.

She spent most of her later life at La Briche, a small See also:

house near La Chevrette, in the society of Grimm -and of a small circle of men of letters. She died on the 17th of See also:April 1783. Her Conversations d'Emilie (1774), composed for the See also:education of her See also:grand-daughter, Emilie de Belsunce, was crowned by the French See also:Academy in 1783. The Memoires et Correspondance de Mme d'Epinay, renfermant un grand nombre de lettres inedites de Grimm, de Diderot, et de J.-J. Rousseau, ainsi que See also:des details, &c., was published at See also:Paris (1818) from a MS. which she had bequeathed to Grimm. The Memoires are written by herself in the See also:form of a sort of autobiographic See also:romance. Madame d'Epinay figures in it as Madame de Montbrillant, and Rene is generally recognized as Rousseau, Volx as Grimm, Garner as Diderot. All the letters and documents published along with the Memoires are genuine. Many of Madame d'Epinay's letters are contained in the Correspondance de l'See also:abbe See also:Galiani (1818). Two See also:anonymous See also:works, Lettres a mon fils (Geneva, 1758) and See also:Mes moments heureux (Geneva, 1759), are also by Madame d'Epinay. See Rousseau's Confessions ; Lucien Perey [Mlle Herpin] and Gaston Maugras, La Jeunesse de Mme d'Epinay, See also:les dernieres annees de Mme d'Epinay (1882–1883); Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. ii.; Edmond See also:Scherer, Etudes sur la litterature contemporaine, vols. iii. and vii. There are See also:editions of the Memoires by L.

Enault (1855) and by P. Boiteau (1865); and an See also:

English See also:translation, with introduction and notes (;897), by J. H. Freese.

End of Article: EPINAY, LOUISE FLORENCE PETRONILLE TARDIEU

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