Talk:Sophie d'Houdetot

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worse than bad[edit]

This is tabloids' stuff. Who cares whom she went to bed with ? Its says there she's a writer, but there no mention of any publications. What did she write ? The quotes have been translated into gibberish. --Anne97432 (talk) 19:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Prostitute?[edit]

Was she truly a courtesan, a prostitute? Did she charge money for sex, or did she simply have lovers? She has this category. This should be clarified. --85.226.44.74 (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Revision and move[edit]

The two preceding comments are both correct. The previous article was translated from French wikipedia, although that was not acknowledged. The French article strangely devoted most of its space to quotations from people who saw Sophie d'Houdetot and her lover Saint-Lambert in their old age, without explaining why she was famous. Some serious errors were made by the translator. "Siècle des Lumières" means "Enlightenment", not "circle of lights". "Mémoires d'Outre-tombe" means "Memoirs from Beyond the Grave", not "Memoirs of Autumn". Neither Sophie nor her cousin Louise d'Épinay was a courtesan; Sophie was presented at court, a far different matter. Sophie was not a writer. A previous contributor moved this article from a listing under Houdetot to Lalive de Bellegarde. It is hard to imagine where that idea came from. The figures quoted in the article call her d'Houdetot, the main source is Buffenoir's book which calls her d'Houdetot, Rousseau called her d'Houdetot, all reference books and serious literary histories and biographies list her under d'Houdetot. I have used the title "Sophie d'Houdetot" following the usual practice these days, as in "Émilie du Châtelet", "Françoise de Graffigny" and "Louise d'Épinay"; it was more common in times past to call them all "Madame de" or to use the noble title, "comtesse de" or "marquise de".--Panpichon (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]