Although Gaston Darboux's path through school and university was very conventional, his life as a researcher and teacher, as well as his humanist convictions, were anything but ordinary—in more ways than one…
He was born on August 13, 1842, in Nîmes (Gard), into a family of haberdashers. On July 22, 1859, he received his baccalauréat in science, then in 1861 ranked first in the entrance examinations for both the École polytechnique and the École normale supérieure (ENS); he chose the latter. Three years later, he ranked first in the agrégation in mathematics. In 1870, he founded the Bulletin des sciences mathématiques, a journal devoted to every branch of pure mathematics that is still published today.
Darboux began his career in 1864 as a teacher at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he remained until 1872. He was then appointed lecturer for the differential and integral calculus course at the ENS, where he stayed until 1881. At the same time, he was appointed professor of higher geometry at the Sorbonne, succeeding Michel Chasles (see Tangente 160). From 1881, he also lectured in mathematics at the École normale d'enseignement secondaire pour les jeunes filles in Sèvres (Hauts-de-Seine) and served as professor of higher geometry at the Faculté des sciences de Paris until 1889. He was its dean from then until 1903.
In 1884, Gaston Darboux was elected to the Académie des sciences, succeeding Victor Puiseux. In 1900, he became its permanent secretary, succeeding Joseph Bertrand. He died in Paris on February 23, 1917.
