Exposition "Comte: la vie rue Monsieur-le-Prince" à la Maison d'Auguste Comte

An exhibition focused on the daily life of Auguste Comte in his apartment on rue Monsieur-le-Prince (Paris 6th arrondissement), between life rituals, work, and various social activities.

Exhibition "Comte: la vie rue Monsieur-le-Prince" at the Maison d'Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte lived his entire life in Paris since his arrival in 1814 at the École polytechnique. He occupied thirteen different lodgings in the capital, but only one would forever be associated with his name: his apartment at 10, rue Monsieur-le-Prince. Comte's definitive establishment in this student district, near the Sorbonne and the École polytechnique, seems perfectly logical for someone whose vocation was primarily teaching. It was the home of a man with few possessions, yet determined to continue his intellectual and cultic activities in a familiar environment. Comte always claimed he wanted to live with material subsistence limited to food, clothing, the salary of his domestic servant, Sophie Bliaux, and his rent. He adopted an ascetic lifestyle, to reserve his energy for the development of his work, and always observed exemplary regularity in everything he did: the use of his days and hours was precisely fixed, and he often declared following a strict "mental hygiene". While a few trips to the theatre, some walks, and a few dinners at restaurants sometimes broke the monotony of his monastic lifestyle, Comte remained most of the time in his apartment, which was first and foremost his workplace. But this apartment, at the time Comte met the great love of his life, Clotilde de Vaux, and especially after her tragic death, acquired a completely different dimension, becoming the "holy domicile" or even the "sacred apartment" in which Comte's great philosophical evolutions would take place. In the living room, the sacraments of his brand new "religion of Humanity" were administered, and the Positivist Society, created in 1848, met in the study... This exhibition invites you to immerse yourself in the intimacy and daily life of Auguste Comte.