Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/36



mysteries surrounding Mile, de Lespinasse from her birth to her grave, and beyond it, have given rise to so many false conjectures that it seems well to bring together the undoubted facts of her life, disengaged from such conjectures and from those statements of her nearest friends which are now known to have been mistaken.

The following Notes are taken from the Introduction written by M. Eugfene Assd for his edition of the " Letters " published in 1876, and from the letters and other writings of her friends published in the same volume, also from : —

The " Œuvres " of d'Alembert. Paris. An xiii (1805). The " Memoires " of Marmontel. Paris. 1804 The " Correspondence Littéraire" of La Harpe and of Grimm. Paris. 1804 and 1830. The " Œuvres " of Condorcet. Paris. 1847-9. The « Mdmoires " of the Abbé de Morellet. The " Œuvres " of Mme. de Stael. The "Tombeau de Mile, de Lespinasse," edited by the Bibliophile Jacob (M. Paul Lacroix). 1879.

Julie-Jeanne-lfil^onore de Lespinasse was born at Lyon on the 18th of November, 1732. It was not without good reason that she compared her birth aiid her early years to the most affecting pages of the novels of Richardson or the Abbé