Lespinasse, CLAIRE FRANÇOISE, or JULIE JEANNE ÉLÉONORE, was born 9th Nov. 1732, at Lyons, an illegitimate daughter of the Countess d'Albon. At first a teacher, she became in 1754 a companion to Madame du Deffand, whose friends, especially D'Alembert, she quickly attached to herself. After the inevitable rupture that followed, she was enabled by the bounty of her friends to maintain a modest salon of her own. The charm she exercised was in no wise due to beauty, for she was plain in face, and, moreover, disfigured by smallpox; yet conversation was brighter and more harmonious, and wit more brilliant in her circle than anywhere else in Paris. Unfortunately for her peace she had a heart sensitive to love, and the passion she was capable of at forty for the young Spaniard, the Marquis de Mora, and two years later for M. de Guibert, cost her the deepest pangs, when the first died, and the second was separated by marriage. The famous D'Alembert had long admired and loved her, but her affection for the philosopher never cost her tears. She died at Paris, 23d May 1776. Many of her letters to her two lovers have been published, and these are aglow with fire and passion. Indeed, in their first editor's metaphor, her phrases burn the paper on which they are written.
The famous Lettres were published in two volumes in 1809. Later editions are by J. Janin (1847) and Isambert (1877). M. Charles Henry's Lettres inédites (1887) were mostly addressed to Condorcet. The editor's introduction is much too high-pitched. A juster judgment will be found in vol. ii. of Sainte-Beuve's Causeries du Lundi.