PREFACE
It is not without hesitation that I have undertaken to write the biography of Pierre Curie. I should have preferred confiding this task to some relative or some friend of his infancy who had followed his whole life intimately and possessed as full a knowledge of his earliest years as of those after his marriage. Jacques Curie, Pierre's brother and the companion of his youth, was bound to him by the tenderest affection. But after his appointment to the University of Montpellier, he lived far from Pierre, and he therefore insisted that I should write the biography, believing that no one else better knew and understood the life of his brother. He communicated to me all his personal memories; and to this important contribution, which I have utilized in full, I have added details related by my husband himself and a few of his friends. Thus I have reconstituted as best I could that part of his existence that I did not know directly. I have, in addition, tried faithfully to express the profound impression his personality made upon me during the years of our life together.
This narrative is, to be sure, neither complete nor perfect. I hope, nevertheless, that the picture it gives of Pierre Curie is not deformed, and that it will help to conserve his memory. I wish, too, that it might remind those who knew him of the reasons for which they loved him.
M. C.