Early Life and Family Background

Dear future mathematicians,

I was born on August 21st, 1789, in Paris, France, approximately one month after the start of the French Revolution.  I am the oldest of the four sons and two daughters of Louis Francois Cauchy, a senior French government officer and Marie-Madeleine Desestre. My father was a student at Paris University, and he studied the classics. He then became a barrister and later advanced to higher administrative positions. For example, he became the first secretary to the Senate. Alexandre Laurent Cauchy and Eugene Francois Cauchy were two of my brothers. One of my sisters, Therese Cauchy, died very young while the other, Adedle Cauchy, married our cousin G. de Neuburg.

At the beginning of the Reign of Terror, my father lost his job, so my family moved from Paris to the village of Arcueil, where I attended school as a child. Here, I met the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and the chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet. Life was hard for my family in Arcueil. I once wrote to a friend “We never have more than a half pound of bread - and sometimes not even that. This we supplement with the little supply of hard crackers and rice that we are allotted.” My family returned to Paris a few years later after the political atmosphere settled.

My father took an active role in my education and was my first teacher. Mathematicians Laplace and Joseph-Louis Lagrange were friends of the my family and visited my home on many occasions. Lagrange, in particular, took a huge interest in my mathematical education and seemed to foresee my genius. He dissuaded my father from showing me any mathematical text before my seventeenth birthday and told him that I should have a solid background in languages before starting serious mathematical education. As a result, my father enrolled me in the best secondary school of Paris, the École Centrale du Panthéon in 1802. I spent two years here studying classical languages. I was a great student who received high grades in all subjects and even won awards in the Humanities and Latin.  In 1804, I enrolled in mathematics classes and took the entrance exam for the École Polytechnique in 1805. I received the second highest score. My classes were taught by other mathematicians of the times like Lacroix, de Prony, and Hachette, and my tutor was Ampere. After graduating, I then attended École des Ponts et Chaussées (School for Bridges and Roads) where I was an outstanding student and graduated in civil engineering.

My first project as an engineer was working on the Ourcq Canal under Pierre Girard. In 1810, I left for Cherbourg where Napoleon was building a naval base. I worked on port facilities for Napoleon’s fleet to invade England. I wrote home to my family “I get up at four o’clock each morning and I am busy from then on… I do not get tired of working, on the contrary, it invigorates me and I am in perfect health…” This did not last long, for I returned to Paris in 1813 because of my depression. Soon after, I started focusing solely on mathematics. In my next letter, I will tell you more about my life.

Augustin-Louis Cauchy


Augustin-Louis Cauchy. (2012). Famous-Mathematicians.com. Retrieved 04:07, February 14, 2018 from http://www.famous-mathematicians.com/augustin-louis-cauchy/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (Ed.). (2017, February 23). Augustin-Louis Cauchy. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustin-Louis-Baron-Cauchy

O'Connor, J. J., & Robertson, E. F. (1997, January). Augustin Louis Cauchy. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cauchy.html

Cauchy, Augustin-Louis. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2018, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-technology/mathematics-biographies/augustin-louis-cauchy