Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/44

Rh clared for her. The Duchesse de Luxembourg blamed her old friend openly, and made a present to Mile, de Lespinasse of the complete furniture of the apartment she had hired ; and the Due de Ghoiseul obtained for her from the king an annual sum which put her above actual need."

In quitting Mme. du Deffand, Mile, de Lespinasse did not exile herself from the faubourg Saint-Germain; she established her new home not far from the convent of Saint- Joseph, in the street, and close to the convent, of Belle- Chasse. Installed in this apartment, which, though modest, must have been almost vast to receive the visitors who pressed there in greater numbers daily, she was not long alone ; a year later d'Alembert joined her, thus associating his life definitely with that of a woman whom he had loved for eight years, and by whom he thought himself beloved. " They lived very far apart," says Marmontel ; " and though in bad weather it was difficult for d'Alembert to return at night from the rue de Belle-Chasse to the rue Michel-le- Comte, where his foster-mother lived, he never thought of quitting the latter until he fell ill of putrid fever, for which the first remedy is pure and free air. His physician, Bou- vard, became uneasy and declared to us that his present lodging might be fatal to him. Watelet offered him his house near the boulevard du Temple; there he was taken, and Mile, de Lespinasse, in spite of all that might be said or thought, went to nurse him. No one, however, thought or said anything but good of her action. D'Alembert recovered, and then, consecrating his life to her who had taken care of him, he went to live in the same house. Nothing more inno- cent than their intimacy, therefore it was respected ; malig- nity itself never attacked it; and the consideration which Mile, de Lespinasse enjoyed, far from suffering any shock, was only the more honourably and publicly established."