433 



tion of the bowels, with which he very soon after was 

 seized, and which had well nigh proved fatal, made it 

 necessary, by the opinion of his physicians, to remove 

 from his old nurse's small and ill-aired lodgings in the 

 dark and narrow street, Rue Michel-le-Comte, in which, 

 as in one of his letters he tells Voltaire, he only could 

 see a yard or two of sky ; and he took up his abode 

 with Mdlle. de 1'Espinasse, who had nursed him 

 tenderly during his illness. No one whispered a syl- 

 lable of suspicion respecting a connection which all 

 were fully convinced could only be of the most innocent 

 kind ; and he continued to reside in the same apart- 

 ment during the remaining twelve years of her singular 

 life. It is now necessary to state some particulars of 

 this attachment, which appear to have been given in 

 an authentic form, and which cannot be easily recon- 

 ciled with the feelings of a high and honourable 

 nature, according to the facts as they stand recorded 

 under his own hand. 



Marmontel, one of the circle (c6terie), and an inti- 

 mate and admiring friend of D'Alembert, informs us 

 that this young lady began to entertain the design of 

 fixing in the substantial and regular form of wedded 

 love, or at least of matrimony, the hitherto erratic 

 admiration of which she had long been the object with 

 many friends. He mentions an accomplished officer, 

 M. Guibert, known for his able military writings, as 

 ^^ one on whom she first set her affections ; and 

 when he escaped her, tells us that she transferred her 

 attempts to the Marquis Mora, a young Spanish 

 grandee of the Fuentes family. But he falls into an 

 evident mistake ; for the correspondence of Mdlle. de 

 1'Espinasse, since published, shows that she fell desper- 

 ately in love with Guibert while she was carrying on 

 her affair with Mora. Guibert, more wary and more 

 experienced, avoided the snare. The Spaniard was 

 completely caught ; and being ordered home by his 

 family, fell ill, as was said, from the excess of his 

 2 F 



