448 D'ALEMBERT. 



obtained for her both a suitable residence and a small 

 pension. An inflammation 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 FEspinasse, who had 

 nursed him tenderly during his illness. No one whispered 

 a syllable 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 apartment 

 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 reconciled 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 (coterie), 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 the 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 Puentes family. 

 But he falls into an evident mistake ; for the correspon- 

 dence of Mdlle. de 1'Espinasse, since published, shews 



