Lespinasse, Julie Jeanne éléonore De

Related Category: French Literature: Biographies

(zhülē´ zhän ālāōnôr´ də lĕspēnäs´), 1732–76, French woman of letters. She aided (1754–64) Mme Du Deffand in her salon and organized (1764) one of her own, which superseded that of her patroness after a break came between the women. Mlle de Lespinasse's salon was a center for the writers of the Encyclopédie. Her letters (written 1773–76; tr. 1901, 1929) to the comte de Guibert are celebrated as a chronicle of unhappy love.