Louise Marie Madeleine Fontaine
On 9 October 1749 at the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Jacques-Armand Dupin married with Louise-Alexandrine-Julie de Rochechouart-Pontville. But for Louise and her husband, their son was a source of many troubles, especially when he ran up debts of very large sums of money from gambling. His father had to sell many of his assets in 1750 to honor the debt of his son. The troubles with Jacques-Armand, however, continued. Claude Dupin was forced to obtain against him a "Lettre de cachet", who imprisoned Jacques-Armand in the fortress of Pierre Encise under the pretext of madness. After this, the family decided to send him to the Île Maurice (26 October 1765), where he remained for the next two years until his death on 3 May 1767, a victim of yellow fever. Before embarking on the "Count of Artois", a merchant ship of the French East India Company, Jacques-Armand reportedly revealed to his mother the existence of an illegitimate daughter of his, called Marie-Thérèse Adam, whose origins, however, remained mysterious. Nevertless, Madame Dupin took care of the child and raised as her own, later becoming in her reader and heiress. Louise considers Marie-Thérèse as her own daughter and educated after her own image, transmitting her high culture and elegance of her manners. Marie-Thérèse Adam was entirely dedicated to Madame Dupin and remained at her side until the last moment.
Louise Marie Madeleine Fontaine
Beautiful, intelligent and cultivated, her seductive power attracts all the sympathies, including men of letters, philosophers and scholars. In this circle and the dinners that she hosted, Madame Dupin had animated conversations, led the debates and proposed discussions. In the Hôtel Lambert, Chenonceau or in the Hôtel de Vins, she held a literary and scientific salon: among her guests are notably Voltaire, the Abbot of Saint-Pierre, Fontenelle, Marivaux, Montesquieu, Buffon, Marmontel, Mably, Condillac, Grimm, Bernis and Rousseau; in addition, she received a great members of the French nobility, like the Princess of Rohan, the Countess of Forcalquier, the Duchess of Lévis-Mirepoix, the Baroness Hervey and the Princess of Monaco. Madame du Deffand was also received, although perhaps she was the only one who spoke unfavorably about Louise Dupin; this probably was because of a typical case of jealousy: the authoritarian hostess of the salon in the Saint-Dominique street found it difficult to accept that her guests attended other circles. During the Enlightenment, the salons were an integral part of social life of the elites, and played an essential role in the dissemination of ideas, social and political protest.