Pierre Curie’s Childhood

Author: Loic Barbo

A Family of Republican Doctors

Pierre Curie was born in Paris on May 15, 1859. His birthplace was located on Rue Cuvier, across from the Jardin des Plantes, near the Natural History Museum where his father, Eugène Curie, conducted medical research. Pierre’s father, Eugène, and his grandfather, Paul, were both doctors and followers of homeopathic medicine.

Although he initially wished to dedicate himself to research, Eugène Curie had to abandon this ambition due to the financial responsibilities brought on by his marriage and the birth of his two sons, Jacques in 1855 and Pierre four years later. He resigned himself to practicing general medicine in the city.

Eugène Curie lived his life with courage, dedication, and selflessness. However, his strong support for the Paris Commune and his firmly held republican political convictions caused him to lose a portion of his bourgeois clientele. As a result, he applied for a position as a medical inspector for child protection services and left Paris, settling first in Fontenay-aux-Roses, then in Sceaux.

In 1891, Eugène Curie retired and moved into a small house on Rue des Sablons in Sceaux, where he lived until 1897, the year his wife Claire-Sophie passed away from breast cancer. After spending a few years with Pierre and his family on Boulevard Kellermann in Paris, he returned to Sceaux, where he died on February 25, 1910.

“Deeply imbued with republican and anti-clerical principles,” as Jacques Curie wrote, “Pierre’s parents raised their children outside of any religious framework. They were not baptized and did not take part in any form of religious worship.”

A passion for research and adherence to republican ideals—these two key traits of Pierre Curie’s family background would remain influential throughout his life. His scientific career path owes much to his father, and his experimental scientific approach was likely shaped by Eugène Curie’s homeopathic clinical method, grounded in careful observation, diagnostic humility, and persistence in treatment.

Skipping School

“Educated and intelligent, Pierre Curie’s parents belonged,” according to Jacques, “to the lower middle class with modest means, and did not frequent high society; their only connections were family ties.” Jacques and Pierre Curie thus grew up in this “modest family environment, not without its worries,” where “a gentle and affectionate atmosphere prevailed.” Their education, however, was highly unconventional. Jacques, the elder, attended secondary school sporadically; as for Pierre, he never attended any formal institution—his entire childhood was spent within the family home.

Observing Pierre’s extremely sensitive and introverted nature, his dreamy and distracted mind, his parents realized that a conventional education with strict discipline would be detrimental to him. Furthermore, his intellectual qualities were not suited to the rigid framework of a traditional school curriculum. Unwilling to settle for superficial explanations of phenomena that caught his attention, Pierre felt a compelling need to examine and understand them thoroughly. To achieve this, he would focus his thoughts so intensely on the subject of study that he would forget the world around him.

His first teachers were family members, starting with his mother, who taught him to read. Then came his father, who, convinced of the beneficial influence of nature on a child’s development and intellectual growth, nurtured in Pierre a deep interest in natural sciences. His true classroom was the countryside, where he could satisfy his need for solitude and reflection. When he was old enough, he accompanied his father and brother on long hikes through the woods around Paris, especially in the Chevreuse Valley. From those walks and excursions in the countryside at all hours, Pierre Curie retained fond memories:

“Oh! What a wonderful time I spent there, in that soothing solitude, far from the thousand little annoying things that, in Paris, drive me mad… No, I do not regret the nights spent in the woods and those days that passed so quietly. I will always remember with gratitude the woods of La Minière! Of all the places I’ve seen, it’s the one I loved most and where I was the happiest. I often left in the evening, walking up the valley. I would return with twenty ideas in my head…”

This unconventional education was highly irregular and fragmented; Pierre developed some areas of knowledge in great depth while neglecting others. “His classical and literary studies, for example, were practically nonexistent, whereas his knowledge of geometry and natural sciences was quite advanced,” noted his brother.

When Pierre turned 14, his parents made an exception to their highly liberal educational approach by hiring a mathematics teacher, Albert Bazille, who understood Pierre and grew fond of him. He taught him elementary mathematics, as studied in secondary school, and also introduced him to Latin. The significance of Bazille’s role in Pierre’s mathematical education and intellectual development was emphasized by Jacques:

“It seems clear that from those lessons, Pierre’s mind opened and developed, and that it was thanks to Mr. Bazille’s remarkable teaching that his intellectual transformation took place, deepening his abilities and awakening his scientific talents.”

At the end of 1875, Pierre took the science baccalauréat at the age of sixteen, which was the average age for candidates.

On November 9, 1875, after his written exams and oral responses before the examination jury, Pierre Curie was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science with a passing mention, having scored 13 out of 22 points—a final average of 11.8 out of 20.

The level of the baccalauréat may not have been very high, but the success rate was low. In 1875, within the Paris academic district, across the three exam sessions (April–May, July, and October–November), 1,765 candidates enrolled for the science baccalauréat. Only 663 were admitted—a 38% pass rate!

A Dreamy Young Man

As a teenager, Pierre Curie was a tall and slender young man (1.74 meters), with a beard and chestnut-colored hair, according to the information recorded in his military documents in 1880. Pierre did not serve in the military; he was exempted after committing to five years of public service.

Commenting on a photograph taken in 1878 that shows him with his family, Marie Curie wrote:

“At that time, he was a young man with a timid and reserved appearance. Yet a sense of deep inner life radiates from his young face, as captured in a good photograph of the family group, which includes Dr. Curie, his wife, and their two sons. His head rests on his hand in a pose of abandonment and reverie, and one cannot help but be struck by the expression in his large, clear, almond-shaped eyes, which seem to be following some inner vision. His brother beside him offers a striking contrast with his dark hair, lively gaze, and confident demeanor.”

The contrast in character between the two brothers—Jacques, the extrovert, and Pierre, the introvert—did not prevent them from being very close throughout their lives. During their childhood and adolescence, they shared common pastimes and a mutual love of nature. They formed friendships with the same young people: their cousin Louis Depoully, who became a doctor, and Albert Bazille, the son of Pierre’s mathematics teacher, who pursued engineering studies. Later, though separated by professional obligations, the two brothers always found joy in reuniting, as Pierre wrote to Marie in a letter dated 1894:

“I was very happy to spend a few hours with my brother. At times, it felt as though we were back in the days when we lived together. Back then, we had come to share the same opinions about everything; so much so that, thinking alike, we no longer needed to speak in order to understand each other. It was all the more surprising given how entirely different our characters are.”

The brothers’ opposing personalities explained the different relationships they had with their father. Pierre lived at home with his parents for a long time and maintained a good relationship with his father, despite the latter’s increasingly authoritarian nature—especially during political discussions. Pierre easily accepted Dr. Curie’s authoritarianism: “I’m not very good at getting angry,” he said with a smile. This was not the case with Jacques, who often clashed with his father. In a 1897 letter, Pierre mentioned these increasingly frequent altercations, which worried their mother:

“Mama is so sad when I talk about leaving that I haven’t yet had the courage to set a date. She’s also very afraid that Jacques will argue with Papa—they’re both so hot-tempered.”

At twenty, Pierre Curie was a young man filled with doubt and anxiety about his future. He wondered:

“What will I become? Very rarely do I feel entirely like myself; usually, a part of me is asleep. It seems like each day my mind becomes heavier.”

In another text written around the same age, his uncertainty and anxiety about the future inspired the following reflection:

“We must eat, drink, sleep, laze around, love—in other words, indulge in life’s sweetest things—yet not succumb to them. We must, while doing all of this, ensure that the unnatural thoughts we’ve committed ourselves to remain dominant and continue their relentless course in our poor heads. We must make life a dream, and turn a dream into reality.”

When he wrote these lines, Pierre had no way of knowing that his dream would come true through those very “unnatural thoughts”: science and research. And that, in the absence of ambition or pride, he could rely on his imagination and keen powers of observation.

References :

• Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Payot, Paris, 1923, p. 10.
• Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18434. 
• Archives Nationales, F 17/22812.
• Jacques Curie, « Notes biographiques sur Pierre Curie », Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18434, p. 176.
• Marie Curie, préface des Œuvres de Pierre Curie, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1908.
• Eve Curie, Madame Curie, Gallimard, Paris, 1938, p. 197.
• Jacques Curie, « Notes biographiques sur Pierre Curie », Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18434, p. 177.
• Nicole Hulin-Jung, L’organisation de l’enseignement des sciences, Edition du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1989, Paris, p. 155.
• Archives Nationales, AJ/16/5410.
• Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18434.
• Lettre de Pierre Curie à Marie Sklodowska, 29 juillet 1897, Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18447, p. 396.
• Lettre de Pierre Curie à Marie Sklodowska, 27 juillet 1897, Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18447, p. 392.
• Bibliothèque Nationale, N.A.F. 18434, « Fragments du journal », p. 1-2.