Françoise-Louise de Warens, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Françoise-Louise de Warens

benefactress and mistress of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Date of Birth: 31-Mar-1699

Place of Birth: Vevey, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland

Date of Death: 29-Jul-1762

Profession: aristocrat

Nationality: Switzerland

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Françoise-Louise de Warens, born Louise Éléonore de la Tour du Pil, also called Madame de Warens (31 March 1699 – 29 July 1762), was the benefactress and mistress of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Warens was born in Vevey, into a Swiss Protestant family who had immigrated to Annecy, but became a Roman Catholic in 1726 in order to receive a church pension which had been instated to increase the spread of Roman Catholicism near Geneva, then a bastion of Protestantism. A controversial figure, she was known to have led a liberal life for a woman of her time.
She annulled her marriage to M.
de Warens in 1726 after failing in a clothing business.
Rousseau met her for the first time on Palm Sunday 1728.
It was said that she was a spy and a converter for Savoy, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Though Warens was originally a teacher to Rousseau, they became sexually engaged after she openly initiated him in the matters of love and "intimacy".
Françoise-Louise de Warens died in poverty in 1762 in Chambéry, of which Rousseau did not learn until six years afterwards.
Rousseau describes his relationship with her in his Confessions.