ABSTRACT
Louise d’Epinay is best remembered today as the wealthy patroness of Rousseau who lent him l’Ermitage, where he wrote much of Julie. Among her contemporaries, d’Epinay was best known as a friend of the Encyclopedistes and as a salonniere, whose home attracted some of the most brilO liant minds of her time, including Diderot, Duclos, d’Holbach, Grimm, d’Alembert, and of course Rousseau. D’Epinay’s triumph as a salonniere is perhaps best reflected in the preference shown to her by the Abbe Galiani, the Neapolitan ambassador to France, whose brilliant mind and sparkling wit made him highly sought after in Parisian society. “He was all the rage, espeO cially among the women, who competed for his attention,” notes Elisabeth Badinter. “Madame d’Epinay prevailed. Freer in mind and spirit than Mme Geoffrin, less prudish than Mme Necker, Louise established with him an onO going intellectual exchange based on a deep mutual affection.”1 After Galiani’s return to Naples in 1769, d’Epinay entered into a regular corresponO dence with him that would continue fourteen years until her death.2
