Julie de lespinasse philosophy of science
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About us
In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about Lespinasse’s last will and testament, her insistent request for D’Alembert to have her head opened soon after her death, her bequest to him of a chiffonnière with nine drawers because she had heard him säga he loved drawers, and her instructions as to what he should do with the papers that he would find when he opened the drawers of the desk and large cupboard she also left him. In this blogpost, inom want to say a bit more about the only papper she asked him not to bränna, her manuscripts, some loose, some bound, four volumes of which are today at the Voltaire Foundation.
If they have not been studied to date, it is no doubt, at least in part, because what she calls ‘mes manuscrits’ were not hers in the sense in which we now tend to understand that phrase, which fryst vatten to säga they are not, for the most part, writings by her in her hand. Lespinasse is largely neither the author nor the copyist, and most of her manuscripts were hers only in th
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Chapter 2 “The Most Excellent Men of the Century”: Julie de Lespinasse and Friendship in the Republic of Letters
Dalton, Susan. "Chapter 2 “The Most Excellent Men of the Century”: Julie de Lespinasse and Friendship in the Republic of Letters". Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres in Eighteenth-Century Europe, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004, pp. 34-54. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780773571525-004
Dalton, S. (2004). Chapter 2 “The Most Excellent Men of the Century”: Julie de Lespinasse and Friendship in the Republic of Letters. In Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres in Eighteenth-Century Europe (pp. 34-54). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780773571525-004
Dalton, S. 2004. Chapter 2 “The Most Excellent Men of the Century”: Julie de Lespinasse and Friendship in the Republic of Letters. Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Priv
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About us
‘Je veux que six heures apres ma mort, on me fasse ouvrir la tête’. That is the first instruction given by Julie de Lespinasse in her last will and testament, addressed to D’Alembert as her executor. The line comes as a bit of a surprise or, at least, it did to me. I was expecting, somewhat illogically I realise on further reflection, that what she would be wanting to have opened six hours after her death would be something more obvious like the envelope containing her last will and testament, which does state: ‘A Monsieur Dalembert. Ceci est le testament de Mlle de lespinasse, pour être ouvert au moment de sa mort’ (Fig. 1).
But, of course, he had already opened it by the time he came to read the line about wanting her head opened. It is not metaphorical. At least, there are no metaphorical possibilities at this stage in the will, the second sentence, the first in her voice, the preceding one being wholly formulaic, ‘ceci est mon testament, et mes dernieres volontes, au