Charles-François-Maximilien Marie

Charles-François-Maximilien Marie (1819 to 1891) was a French mathematician and historian of mathematics. Born in Paris on 1 January 1819, the son of an infantry captain who had served in Napoleon's army, he graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1838 and trained as an artillery officer at the school in Metz, then resigned his commission in 1841 to follow mathematics in Paris. In 1862, backed by Joseph Liouville and Jean-Victor Poncelet, he was appointed professor of mechanics at the École Polytechnique, and from 1875 he headed its admissions. He is remembered for two large works, the three-volume Théorie des fonctions de variables imaginaires (1874 to 1876), on functions of a complex variable, and the twelve-volume Histoire des sciences mathématiques et physiques (1883 to 1888). He belonged to the circle around Auguste Comte, and his sister Clotilde de Vaux was the woman Comte loved. In later life he entered politics as mayor of Châtillon, retired from the Polytechnique in 1890, and died the next year. He was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur in 1876 and an officer in 1880.