any one doctrine. Moreover, he always fulfilled his obligations as an elector just as his father had done. In public as in private life he did not believe in the use of violence.

or at least the most

'What would you think,' he wrote to me, 'of someone who ran headfirst into a stone wall with the intention of breaking it down? This idea might be the result of fine sentiments, but it would be stupid and ridiculous just the same. I think that there is no justice in this world and that the strongest system economical - will prevail. Man is condemned to labor and even to live in misery. It is a revolting business, but it will not stop for that reason; it will probably disappear because man is a kind of machine, and there is an advantage from an economic point of view in making any machine function normally without being forced.'

He applied the same clearness and comprehension to his personal life that he did to general problems. Great loyalty to himself and to others made him suffer the compromises imposed by existence, although he reduced them to a minimum.

'We are all slaves of our affections, slaves of the prejudices that we love; at the same time we have to gain our livelihood and thus become a cog in a machine. The most deplorable concessions are those that we have to make to the prejudices of the society that surrounds us: we make more or less of these in proportion to our weakness or our strength. Whoever does not make enough is crushed. Here I am, far away from the principles that I held ten years ago. At that time I thought that you had to be excessive in everything and should not make any concessions to your surroundings. I thought that you had to exaggerate your defects as well as your virtues.'

Such were the opinions of the man

who, without any fortune of his own, asked that he might associate his life with that of the student whom he had met.

At the end of the vacation, our friendly relations became more and more affectionate each of us understanding that it would be impossible to find a better companion for existence. Our marriage was therefore decided upon and it took place on the twenty-fifth of July, 1895. In accordance with our common taste, the ceremony was reduced to a strict minimum; it was civil because Pierre Curie belonged to no cult and I was not practising any religious belief.

Our first quarters were very modest and consisted only of a little threeroom lodging in the Rue de la Glacière, not far from the Physics School. Its chief merit was that it overlooked a vast garden. Our very limited stock of furniture consisted of things that had belonged to our parents. Our resources did not permit us to keep a servant, so I had to look after almost all the household duties as I had been used to doing in my student days.

Pierre Curie's salary as a professor was six thousand francs a year, and we tried to get along without his imposing any supplementary tasks on himself, especially at the beginning. On my own behalf, I undertook the preparation of a group of girls for an examination with the view of getting the teaching position that I was finally awarded in 1896. Our existence was entirely organized on the basis of our scientific work and our days were passed in the laboratory, where Schützenberger allowed me to work near my husband, who was engaged in a study of the growth of crystals that interested him very much.

He wanted to know whether the fact that certain faces of a crystal developed more than others was due to a different

speed of growth or to a different degree of solubility. He quite soon obtained some interesting results that have not been published, but he had to interrupt this work to pursue his researches in radioactivity and he could never take them up again—a thing he often regretted. I was occupied at the same time in a study of the magnetization of tempered steel.

The preparation of his lectures at the school was an important matter to Pierre Curie. The chair had recently been established and no outline for his course was imposed on him. At first he divided his lessons between crystallography and electricity; then, recognizing more and more the usefulness of a serious theoretic course on electricity for the benefit of future engineers, he devoted himself entirely to this subject and succeeded in establishing a course of about a hundred and twenty lessons, which was the most. complete and up-to-date then being given in Paris. All this required much effort, of which I was the daily witness. He was always careful to give a complete picture of the phenomena and of the evolution of his theories and ideas; he was also careful of the precision and clearness of his mode of exposition. He thought of publishing a treatise summing up this course, but he was so absorbed in a multiplicity of labors during the following years that he was unfortunately never able to put it into execution.

We lived in close unity and all our interests were shared in common: theoretic work, laboratory experience, preparation of courses or examinations. During eleven years we were almost never separated. It reached such a point that there exist only a few lines of correspondence between us in all this time. Our days of rest and our vacations were devoted to walking or bicycle rides, sometimes in the country

around Paris, sometimes on the seacoast or in the mountains.

Later, when we had our child with us, we were led to spend our vacations in one place without traveling. Then we lived as simply as possible in retired villages where we could scarcely be distinguished from the natives. I remember the amazement of an American journalist who found us in Poldou at the moment when I was seated on the stone steps of our house shaking the sand out of my shoes. However, his perplexity did not last long; for, entering into the situation, he sat down beside me and began scribbling my replies to his questions in his notebook.

Our eldest daughter, Irène, came into the world in September 1897, and a few days after Pierre Curie suffered the loss of his mother. Doctor Curie then came to live with us in a house with a garden, situated in the fortifications of Paris at 108 Boulevard Kellerman, in the neighborhood of the park of Montsouris. It was there that Pierre Curie lived until the end of his life.

All preoccupation with social affairs was excluded from our existence. Pierre Curie had an unconquerable repugnance for obligations of this sort. He accepted no more invitations and kept up no more uninteresting contacts later in life than he did as a youth. Serious and quiet, he preferred to abandon himself to his reflections rather than to exchange commonplace remarks. He did, however, attach great importance to his relations with his childhood friends and with those people to whom he was joined by common scientific interest.

There were hardly ever any numerous gatherings in our house, because Pierre Curie did not like them. He was more at his ease in conversation with a few people and he rarely went to any meetings except those of scien

tific societies. If, by chance, he found that he had strayed into a place where general conversation could not interest him, he took refuge in a quiet corner and could forget the company by pursuing his own thoughts.

In 1899, Pierre Curie made a trip with me to Austrian Poland in the Carpathians, where one of my sisters, herself a physician, was married to Doctor Dluski and directed a large sanitarium with her husband. Through a touching desire to know everything that was dear to me, he wanted to learn Polish, although he knew very few foreign languages anyway, and although I had not advised him to take up this study, which would not be sufficiently useful to him. He had sincere sympathy for my country and believed in the reëstablishment of a free Poland in the future.

In our common life, it was granted me to know him as he wished to be known and to understand his point of view from day to day. He was all that I could have dreamed of at the time of our marriage and more. My admiration for his exceptional qualities constantly grew; they were on such a high and unusual level that he often seemed to me almost unique in his detachment from all the vanity and pettiness that one finds in one's self and in others, and that one judges indulgently, not without hoping for a more perfect ideal.

It was undoubtedly there that the secret of his infinite charm lay, which disengaged itself from him and to which one could hardly remain insensible. His thoughtful face and the clearness of his expression were extremely attractive. This impression was increased by his kindliness and his gentle character. He came to say that he did not feel combative and it was entirely true. You could not get involved in a dispute with him because he did not know how to lose his temper.

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'I am not very strong at getting myself angry,' he said with a smile.

When he expressed his opinion he always did it frankly because he was convinced that diplomatic procedure was generally childish and that the direct path is both the simplest and the best. In this fashion he acquired a certain reputation for naïveté, but in reality he acted in this way by reflected desire more than by instinct. It is perhaps because he knew how to judge himself and to weigh himself that he was perfectly capable of lucidly appreciating the moves, the intentions, and the thoughts of others, and though he could overlook details he was seldom fundamentally mistaken. Most often he kept such sure judgment to himself, but he would expresss without reticence the decision that he had arrived at when he was certain of doing a useful action.

In scientific matters he had no bitterness and he did not let himself be influenced by self-esteem and personal prepossession. Any fine success pleased him, even if it was in a field where he reckoned on being superior. He said, 'What difference is there if I have not published the work as long as someone has?' He thought that in scientific matters you should be interested in things, not in persons. All ideas of rivalry were so distasteful to him that he even condemned them in the form of examinations or rankings in schools, as well as in the form of distinctions and honors. His advice and encouragement were never held back from those whom he believed apt at scientific work, and many of them hold him in high gratitude.

If his attitude was that of a superior person who had reached the highest level of civilization, his actions were those of a really good man, full of understanding and forbearance, who was endowed with a strong sympathy

for human nature firmly founded on an intellectual basis. He was always disposed to aid anyone in a difficult situation and even to give of his time, which was the greatest sacrifice he could make.

What can be said of his love for his own people and his virtues as a friend? His friendship, which he gave rarely, was sure and faithful because it rested on common ideas and opinions. Even more rare was the gift of his affection, but how complete this gift was to his brother and to me! His customary reserve could give way to an abandon that allowed harmony and confidence to establish themselves. Let us allow him to explain how he gave himself. 'I am thinking of you who fill my

life and I crave new faculties. It seems to me that in concentrating myself entirely upon you, as I have just done, I ought to be able to see you, to follow what you are doing, and also to make you feel that at this moment I am entirely yours; but I cannot catch the image.'

We had no reason to lay great faith in our health and our strength, which were often put to heavy tests. From time to time, as it happens to those who know the price of a life shared in common, fear of the irreparable tragedy touched us. Then his simple courage always led him to the inevitable conclusion: 'Whatever happens, and even if we are only bodies without souls, we must work just the same.'

men's restaurants in Paris have gone off terribly since the war, and where they know how to cook they have also learned how to charge. There is, however, one restaurant, or group of restaurants, in Paris to which I think the veriest curmudgeon could take no exception. The surroundings are ideal, the decorations above criticism, the service courteous and efficient, the prices flatly derisory, the cuisine — but as to that you have only to see the appetites of the patrons. It is called the Restaurant des Moineaux and it has branches all over Paris.

The headquarters are close to the Louvre, but the branch establishments

all conform, with minor variations, to one general scheme. The floors are covered with carpets of a restful green; the sun in summer is excluded by a cunning arrangement of green trelliswork which, swaying to and fro as though moved by an unseen hand, makes for a pleasant coolness, and in the winter can be gathered up and put out of sight.

The managers of these restaurants are invariably respectable old gentlemen who wear frock coats and ribbons in their buttonholes. The waiters and waitresses for there are waitresses as well-are of mature years and unblemished reputations. The most frequent customers are little gentlemen I have never seen one who could really be called big-with smart brown hats and drab coats, and smooth gray waistcoats and the neatest of legs. A curious thing about them is that they might all be members of some great secret society, so similar are their habits. That is to say, they enter through the swing doors by a series of hasty, jerky steps that can almost be called hops, with a quick nod to one side, a glance at the other, and another look behind. It is evident at once that they are men of business, always on the lookout, I am afraid, for the main chance, and in a desperate hurry to get through with their lunch and back to business again.

quietly dressed, indeed, as so many Quakers, and their businesslike correctness is in sharp contrast, unfortunately, to that of some of the gentlemen lunchers, who show an unhappy tendency toward quarreling over the best seats or the prompt service of their favorite waiter.

Sometimes even the peacefulness of the proceedings is marred by actual quarrels. Scarcely has one gentleman secured his seat than there will be a bite and a squeak and a scuffle, and another gentleman has flown at him there is really no other word for it and snatched away the dish which has just been set before him, and something like a general fracas has begun.

I forget if I mentioned that the name of the gentleman with the drab coat is Mr. Sparrow, and the select little restaurants are the pleasant little green gardens of Paris, and the waiters and waitresses are those pleasant humans who always have something in their pockets for hungry dickey birds.

come

Every big city, from Paris to Peking and from Mexico to Montreal, has its chosen type of public garden and is proud of it; but those of Paris are unique, less for what they are than for what they mean. For one thing, they are almost as much private gardens as public. To them the same small people - small human people I mean day after day, exactly as if they were their own private pleasances, and their nurses and their mothers occupy the same place on the same seats, exactly as if they had brought them with them -as sometimes, indeed, they do and the same little typists eat their lunch there is a sameness about that lunch very often, I fear and the same old gentlemen and ladies, their pockets bulging with crumbs, display a rivalry that is almost acrimonious as to who shall have the largest acquaintance among the real proprietors and