Page "Jean François de Saint-Lambert" Paragraph 8

In 1752 he began the second of his two famous love affairs, with Sophie d ' Houdetot.

This relationship became noteworthy because in 1757, while Saint-Lambert was away on military duty in the Seven Years ' War, Jean-Jacques Rousseau suddenly conceived a mad passion for Sophie, which he wrote about in his Confessions.

In Rousseau's mind, she became identified with a character in the great novel he was then writing, Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse.

In the end, Sophie turned Rousseau away, saying that she loved Saint-Lambert.

She and Saint-Lambert remained together as a couple until his death in 1803, spending their last years in a cordial ménage à trois with her husband.