Hostess of one of the most brilliant and emancipated of Parisian salons and author of several volumes of passionate letters that reveal her romantic sensibility and her 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, sister-in-law to the latter and 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 d´Alembert eventually joined her there; she nursed him back to health but never returned his deep love for her. Instead she was torn between her passions for unworthy men of fashion -the Marquis de Mora and the Comte de Guibert.
Diderot wrote of her his Rêve de d´Alembert which she requested him to suppress.
Her Lettres show the intense 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.
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