Poland is interested in the country house which saw the discoverer of the polonium pass.
Offered for sale several weeks ago, a pretty home in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse (Yvelines) which once hosted Pierre and Marie Curie could soon be acquired by the Polish state, said the head of government Mateusz Morawiecki.
"This place is part of the history of Poland,"
he said on Twitter on Monday, after announcing to charge his foreign ministry and the Polish embassy in France with the necessary procedures for its purchase.
Read also: “Welcome to the club!”: Marie Curie's posthumous letter to Esther Duflo
Built around 1890, the 120 m2 house was acquired as a second home by the couple in 1904, a year after obtaining - alongside Henri Becquerel - the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity. It remained in their possession until the accidental death of Pierre Curie, in 1906, on the road between Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and Paris. A place of rest and vacation, their base in Yvelines allowed the couple and their two daughters to come and take the air, far from the capital, far from work.
"They came here during the weekends, the Easter holidays, the summer holidays"
, told the Associated Press agency Daniel Cazou-Mingot the director of the real estate agency which recovered the property. "
There have been no experiments done (on) this property, ”he
explains.
Almost a million euros, works included
Fixed at 790,000 euros, the price of the house is almost a million after adding the 200,000 euros of work required for this building over 130 years old. Somewhat shabby and squatted for a while, the interior of this millstone has remained largely as it was at the time, with its Belle Époque wallpapers, Prussian stove and a ceiling which the owner says current, would have been painted by Marie Curie in person. An aspect to say the least dated - even archaic - which does not meet with the unanimity of the potential buyers.
“This house has a soul, but given its condition, it doesn't appeal to everyone. It takes a crush and a special sensitivity to buy it, "
conceded Daniel Cazou-Mingot to the
Parisian
.
Read also: The Pantheon celebrates Marie Curie
More than the quality of life or an aesthetic concern, it is the historical value which interests above all the Polish government.
"Poland should buy the house of Maria Skłodowska-Curie near Paris and create a museum dedicated to the Great Polonaise there"
, called for the Polish Prime Minister, the conservative MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, member of the ruling Law and Justice party. According to the Associated Press, Polish social networks have not failed to express some reservations about the commitment of public funds for a building that has not been occupied by the Franco-Polish scientist for just two years, and again only once in a while. The deputy ofopposition Michał Szczerba for his part hailed on Twitter a
"good decision"
, while regretting
"that it was taken only after public pressure"
. In Paris, a Musée Curie is located in one of the buildings that made up the Radium Institute.
Born in Warsaw in 1867 and living in Paris since 1891, Maria Skłodowska-Curie is the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and the only female recipient to be awarded twice. In addition to her Nobel received in physical sciences, in 1903, for her work on radioactivity, the scientist was indeed also distinguished in 1911, in chemistry, for her discovery of two radioactive elements, radium and polonium. As the name chosen for the second element attests, the researcher was very attached to her Polish identity at a time when Poland, divided between Germany, Russia and Austria, no longer existed. Since her independence in 1918, Marie Curie has been celebrated in her country of origin as one of the major figures of the 20th century. And as shown inThe Polish government's interest in the vacation home, which she only frequented two years of her life, her memory radiates to a part of public opinion to this day.
