Mini Bio: Madame Curie - Part 3 (English)

Author: Eve Curie

After a four-day-long journey to Paris, Marie arrived at the Gare du Nord. She was to live with Bronya and her husband – another Casimir – who’d fled Poland because of his predilection for socialism. They lived in an apartment in the Rue d’Allemagne. Marie spent her first few weeks living with Bronya and Casimir until the commotion there became too much for her. Marie was ready to finally commit herself wholeheartedly to science, but in their tiny apartment Bronya and Casimir would receive patients by day and host parties at night where discussions on art, science, and socialism would extend until daybreak.

Marie didn’t have time for all this idle chatter, as she called it, and moved out to an unheated tiny apartment, which would later become part of her legend. There, she could finally devote herself to her obsession as she’d longed to for so long. And it was also during this time that she started calling herself Marie, the French version of her name. In a new city, at a world-class university, and with a new name, Marie finally felt free.

At the Sorbonne, Marie dived into her studies and neglected nearly everything else. She didn't know where to buy the simplest things, and wrote to her father asking if he could send her tea or an iron from Poland. Even meals were a thorn in her side. When a fellow student suggested that she make soup at home to gather her strength, Marie brusquely rejected the idea – cooking was just a waste of time!

She subsisted on bread, fruit, and chocolate, which she ate with her nose in a book. Occasionally, she treated herself to an egg or a piece of meat. Once in a blue moon, she deigned to drag a bucket of coals up the many stairs. Most nights, her only source of warmth was a pile of clothes.

But her hard work paid off. In 1893, she finished her physics exams at the top of her class and was promptly granted a scholarship. The next year, she completed her math degree and received her first paid research assignment. She was asked to perform an analysis of different types of steel and their magnetic properties.

This payment finally afforded Marie to eat proper meals regularly. For experiments on her research assignment, her professor Gabriel Lippmann granted her access to use his lab. But, it was small and poorly equipped. A friend recommended that she talk to a magnetism expert he knew: a certain physicist named Pierre Curie.