First years His/her parents are Louis Gabriel Tardieu, marquis d' Esclavelles and Prouveur Florence-Angelica.
It is nine years old when his/her father dies. Its education then will be lamentably neglected by his/her mother, which will show herself in addition well little magnetizes.
The work of Louise comes very whole from the regrets and frustrations caused by this education.
Between on on June 15th, 1737 and on on July 15th, 1738, it is sent to the convent in waiting of the marriage, as that was done frequently at the time.
At the nineteen years age, she is married with her first cousin the farmer general Denis Lalive d' Épinay (1724-1782) (relieved of its station in 1762). She will have of him two children whose girl died in low-age but will suffer quickly from the debauchery of her husband and, especially, owing to the fact that he was a terribly extravagant man. A separation of goods will be marked in 1748, ensuring Louise a less uncomfortable financial position.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Around 1747, his/her lover Louis Dupin de Francueil, the grandfather of George Sand, introduces Jean-Jacques Rousseau to him. It will give refuge to Rousseau with the Hermitage, small house located on its field of the Kids, close to Morello cherry, of April 1756 at the summer of the following year, before they are scrambled, in particular because of the violent passion (not divided) which then tests Rousseau towards Sophie d' Houdetot, sister-in-law of Louise d'Épinay.
In spite of this final estrangement, Rousseau and Louise d'Épinay will have had a very important influence one on the other, in particular on the subjects of the education of the children, the bond parent-child and the breast-feeding.
The living room of Madam d' Epinay Louise d'Épinay regularly accommodated in Montmorency then, as from 1770, in Paris, the beautiful-spirits of the century, the first of which the baron Grimm, his mentor and his moral adviser - his lover also -, Denis Diderot, of Alembert, Marivaux, Charles Pinot Duclos, Marmontel, Montesquieu, Jean-Nicolas Dufort de Cheverny, Michel-Jean Sedaine, the marquis Jean-François of Saint-Lambert, Jean-Baptist-Antoine Suard, Damilaville, Dupin de Francueil, Aimable Roy, Raynal, of Holbach, the abbot Ferdinando Galiani, Claude-Henri de Fusée of Voisenon and Bernard-Joseph Saurin, the baron de Greutz, the marquis de Mora, the count de Fuentès, the Danish baron Gleichen and Stormont.
Against-Confessions When it was learned that Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote her Confessions, it was thought, wrongly, that the writer would regulate his accounts with all-Paris by delivering to the public various gossip. Madam d' Épinay, in order to counter attacks on her private life on the part of her former friend wrote her “Against-confessions” (History of Madam de Montbrillant), copious work in which it details and justifies, inter alia, why it is one day has been suddenly misled her husband. They are pseudo-memories since the nouns are modified. Grimm and Diderot will help Louise d'Épinay to write her book, in particular by making a black portrait of the character of Rene - in fact Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This work, published in a posthumous way in 1818, is from now on known like one of the masterpieces of the female literature of the XVIII E century.
Its other works Louise d'Épinay contributed anonymously to the literary Correspondence directed by Grimm. In 1773, it publishes “Conversations of Emilie”, dialog mother-girl (inspired by its reports with its little girl, Emilie of Belsunce, that it raised as her own daughter) whose second edition will receive the price of utility of the French Academy in 1783, little time before the death of the author.
Madam d' Épinay in addition left an abundant correspondence, in particular with her friend Voltaire.