Les pratiques d'ecriture et de sociabilite de Louise d'Epinay a la lumiere de ses contributions a la 'Correspondance litteraire' et de ses lettres a Ferdinando Galiani 1755-1783

Louise d'Epinay's contributions to the Correspondance litteraire (1755-1783) and her correspondence with Ferdinando Galiani (1769-1782) constitute two complementary corpora which allow us to understand this author's practices of sociability and to reveal their interaction with her writing. Her critical work, her dialogues and her letters contribute to the co-opting of a social elite, via their circulation in the margins of good society and their extension of court society's mechanisms of distinction. The analysis of self-representations and group-representations in these writings allow us to better understand the social representations that give them meaning and that explain their restricted circulation. This thesis, based on sociological concepts, proposes a renewal of Louise d'Epinay's studies, and those of the women associated with Enlightenment salons.;Keywords. Eighteenth-century French literature; Louise d'Epinay; Social life and customs; Social representation; Women writers.