Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Esclavelles d'Epinay (March 11, 1726 – April 17, 1783), French writer, was born at Valenciennes. March 11 is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71st in Leap year). ... Events George Friderich Handel becomes a British subject. ... April 17 is the 107th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (108th in leap years). ... 1783 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Though anyone who creates a written work may be called a writer, the term is usually reserved for those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Valenciennes is a town and commune in northern France in the Nord département on the Scheldt river. ...

She is well known on account of her liaisons with Rousseau and Baron von Grimm, and her acquaintanceship with Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach and other French men of letters. Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a French philosopher, writer, political theorist, and self-taught composer of The Age of Enlightenment. ... Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm (December 26, 1723 - December 19, 1807), French author, the son of a German pastor, was born at Ratisbon. ... Portrait of Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767 Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French writer and philosopher. ... Jean le Rond dAlembert, pastel by Maurice Quentin de la Tour Jean Le Rond dAlembert (November 16, 1717 – October 29, 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. ... Baron dHolbach Paul Henry Thiry, baron dHolbach ( 1723 1 - 1789 2) was an homme de lettres, philosophe and encyclopédiste. ...

Her father, Tardieu d'Esclavelles, a brigadier of infantry, was killed in battle when she was nineteen; and she married her cousin Denis Joseph de La Live d'Epinay, who was made a collector-general of taxes. The marriage was an unhappy one; and Louise d'Epinay believed that the prodigality, dissipation and infidelities of her husband justified her in obtaining a formal separation in 1749. She settled in the château of La Chevrette in the valley of Montmorency, and there received a number of distinguished visitors.

Conceiving a strong 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 retreat he found for a time the quiet and natural rural pleasures he praised so highly. Rousseau, in his Confessions, affirmed that the inclination was all on her side; but as, after her visit to Geneva, Rousseau became her bitter enemy, little weight can be given to his statements on this point. 1756 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Geneva (French: Genève) is the second-most populous city in Switzerland located where Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman, but the Genevois are fond of calling it Lac de Genève) empties into the Rhône River. ...

Her intimacy with Grimm, which began in 1755, marks a turning-point in her life, for under his influence she escaped from the somewhat compromising conditions of her life at La Chevrette. In 1757-1759 she paid a long visit to Geneva, where she was a constant guest of Voltaire. In Grimm's absence from France (1775-1776), Madame d'Epinay continued, under the superintendence of Diderot, the correspondence he had begun with various European sovereigns. She spent most of her later life at La Briche, a small house near La Chevrette, in the society of Grimm and of a small circle of men of letters. 1755 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher. ...

Her Conversations d'Emilie (1774), composed for the education of her grand-daughter, Emilie de Belsunce, was crowned by the French Academy in 1783. The Mémoires et Correspondance de Mme dEpinay, renfermant un grand nombre de lettres indites de Grimm, de Diderot, et de J.-J. Rousseau, ainsi que des details, &c., was published at Paris (1818) from a manuscript which she had bequeathed to Grimm.

The Mémoires are written by herself in the form of a sort of autobiographic romance. Madame d'Epinay figures in it as Madame de Montbrillant, and René is generally recognized as Rousseau, Volx as Grimm, Gamier as Diderot. All the letters and documents published along with the Mémoires are genuine. Many of Madame d'Epinay's letters are contained in the Correspondance de l'abbé Galiani (1818). Two anonymous works, Lettres a mon fils (Geneva, 1758) and Mes moments heureux (Geneva, 1759), are also by Madame d'Epinay.

See Rousseau's Confessions; Lucien Perey and Gaston Maugras, La Jeunesse de Mme d'Epinay, les dernières annes de Mmme d'Epinay (1882-1883); Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. ii.; Edmond Scherer, Etudes sur la littérature contemporaine, vols. iii. and vii. There are editions of the Mémoires by L Enault (1855) and by P Boiteau (1865); and an English translation, with introduction and notes (1897), by JH Freese. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (December 23, 1804 – October 13, 1869) was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history. ...

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...