![Juliette Peirce in 1883](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Juliette_Peirce_in_1883.jpg)
Juliette Peirce (; d. October 4, 1934) was the second wife of the mathematician and philosopher
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
.
History
Almost nothing is known about Juliette Peirce's life before she met Charles—not even her name, which is variously given as Juliette Annette Froissy or Juliette Pourtalai. Some historians believe she was
French, but others have speculated that she had a
Gypsy
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
heritage (Ketner 1998, p. 279ff).
[Ketner, Kenneth Layne (1998), ''His Glassy Essence: An Autobiography of Charles Sanders Peirce'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN, 416 pages, hardcover. Uses a fictional framing device, but most of the book presents Peirce's own words and the words of his family and friends.] On occasion, she claimed to be a
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
princess.
[Brent 1998, p. 143.] Scanty facts about her provide only a few possible clues to her past. She spoke French, had her own income,
had gynecological illnesses that prevented her from having children, and owned a deck of
tarot
The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...
cards said to have predicted the downfall of
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. She probably first met Charles in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
at the
Hotel Brevoort's New Year's Eve ball in December 1876.
Controversy
Charles Peirce's first wife,
Harriet Melusina Fay, had left him in 1875, but he was not divorced from her until 1882. Charles and Juliette became close friends and travel companions, and were likely romantically involved before his divorce was official. This indiscretion is sometimes said to have cost him his career. Peirce had a teaching position at
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
.
When he was being considered for a permanent post, one of the major American scientists of the day,
Simon Newcomb
Simon Newcomb (March 12, 1835 – July 11, 1909) was a Canadian–American astronomer, applied mathematician, and autodidactic polymath. He served as Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy and at Johns Hopkins University. Born in Nov ...
, who apparently did not like Peirce, pointed out to a Johns Hopkins trustee that Peirce, while an employee of the university, had traveled with a woman to whom he was not married. The ensuing scandal led to Peirce's dismissal. His later applications to many universities for teaching posts were all unsuccessful, and in fact he never again held a full-time permanent position anywhere. As a result, Juliette was often blamed for Peirce's failure to reach the eminent social stature his intellect might have commanded.
There were strains with Peirce's mother Sarah, brother Jem (James Mills Peirce), and most of all his aunt Lizzie, who owned the house in which Sarah and Jem lived, but despite that and strains in the marriage itself, Peirce remained powerfully attached to Juliette. In a diary entry for January 6, 1889, Peirce wrote, regarding Juliette's health, "If I should lose her, I would not survive her. Therefore, I must turn my ''whole'' energy to saving her." Except during occasional travels by one or the other, they remained together until his death in 1914, and she never remarried.
215px, Juliette and Charles by the well at their home, Arisbe, in 1907
Arisbe
In 1887 Peirce spent part of his inheritance from his parents to buy 2,000 acres (8 km²) of rural land near
Milford, Pennsylvania
Milford is a borough in Pike County, Pennsylvania and the county seat. Its population was 1,103 at the 2020 census. Located on the upper Delaware River, Milford is part of the New York metropolitan area.
History
The area along the Delaware Ri ...
, land that never yielded an economic return. There he had an 1854 farmhouse remodeled to his design. The local people, many of whom were French, accepted Juliette. The Peirces led an active social life there and became friends with relatives of
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsy ...
. Except for occasional travels and stays elsewhere, the Peirces spent the rest of their lives there. They named their property ''Arisbe'' for possibly any or all of the following reasons:
* The ancient city of Arisbe was a colony of the city-state of
Miletus
Miletus (; gr, Μῑ́λητος, Mī́lētos; Hittite transcription ''Millawanda'' or ''Milawata'' (exonyms); la, Mīlētus; tr, Milet) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in a ...
, which was the scene of much early Greek philosophy and science.
* The ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...
'' tells of
Axylus In Greek mythology, Axylus (Ancient Greek: Ἄξυλος) was a Trojan warrior who participated in the Trojan War.
Family
Axylus was the son of Teuthranus.
Mythology
Axylus was a wealthy and young man who came from the town of Arisbe, a city ...
, who welcomed all passers-by into his house near a public road in Arisbe, Homer remarking that later none of them stood between Axylus and death in battle.
* Reasons connected with other meanings of "Arisbe" (see
Arisbe (disambiguation) Arisbe (Ancient Greek: Ἀρίσβη) may refer to:
* Another name for Batea (daughter of Teucer), a person in Greek mythology
* Arisbe (daughter of Merops), an early wife of King Priam of Troy, also daughter of the seer Merops of Percote
* Ari ...
).
* "Arisbe" is an anagram of French ''baiser'', "kiss" (as a noun; as a verb, ''baiser'' has since the 16th century meant "to have sexual intercourse").
Even as they sank into poverty, they continued to make expansions to the house, almost losing it and their land because of unpaid debts.
A Santiago conjecture
In ''His Glassy Essence''
[ (1998), p. 279ff, ]Kenneth Ketner
Kenneth Laine Ketner is an American philosopher. He is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor, Charles Sanders Peirce Interdisciplinary Professor and Director of Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism, Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University (Te ...
speculates that Juliette was of Spanish Gypsy origin, and that Charles's adding "Santiago" to his name was his way of "informally ... paying tribute to his wife ... and to her cultural origins as a Spanish woman who was a Gitano, or Spanish Gypsy of Andalusia." It involves the movement of Gypsies
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
into Spain along the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St ...
, Santiago's being the patron saint of Spain, Juliette's being in Spain at the time when Peirce's friend and colleague Ernst Schröder's ''Logik'' was published, and other reasons.
Illnesses and Juliette's widowhood
Peirce suffered from his late teens through the rest of his life with an ailment then known as "facial neuralgia" which would today be diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia (TN or TGN), also called Fothergill disease, tic douloureux, or trifacial neuralgia is a long-term pain disorder that affects the trigeminal nerve, the nerve responsible for sensation in the face and motor functions such as ...
, a chronic, intensely painful condition against which he self-medicated with drugs such as morphine
Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a analgesic, pain medication, and is also commonly used recreational drug, recreationally, or to make ...
, cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
, and alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
. His mental and physical illnesses worsened with time, and he suffered numerous breakdowns over the course of his life, rendering him increasingly unreliable. His earnings from temporary posts, lectures and articles dwindled, until he and Juliette lived in poverty. At his death he had more than 100,000 pages of unpublished writing. Juliette sold these to Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and Victor Lenzen was responsible for relocating them there.
In her later years, Juliette was described as increasingly frail. She contracted, and eventually died of, tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
. When Peirce died in 1914, Juliette was left destitute and alone. She lived another twenty years, dedicated to bringing Peirce and his ideas the recognition she believed they deserved. An obituary in ''Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'' described her[See p. 441 in ''Science'' v. 80, 1934.] as a "gracious lady" who "lived and passed away...in the distinction of her devotion."
In popular culture
''Pierce-Arrow'', by Susan Howe
Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements. , New Directions, 1999, consists of an essay and poems focusing on Charles and his wife Juliette. The spelling of the title is correct, referring to the old motor car company, as well as punning for example on the Peirce arrow logical symbol for "neither...nor...".
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
* Peirce, Charles Sanders and Ketner, Kenneth Laine (1998), ''His Glassy Essence: An Autobiography of Charles Sanders Peirce'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN, 416 pages, hardcover. Uses a fictional framing device, but most of the book presents Peirce's own words and the words of his family and friends. Book's Internet homepage
http://www.wyttynys.net/
* Brent, Joseph L. (1993, 1998), ''Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life'', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, first edition 1993. Revised and enlarged edition, 1998, 432 pages, Indiana University Press, and 1998, NetLibrary.
* Houser, Nathan (2000), "Introduction", '' Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition'', v. 6
Eprint
of "Introduction". Biographical account of C. S. Peirce along with Juliette during 1887 through spring 1890.
* Kiryushchenko, Vitaly (2008), "In the Net of Abductions"
PDF Eprint
(University of Helsinki ''Commens'
, a 2008 translation of Chapter 9, which focuses on Juliette, in a Russian biography of C. S. Peirce ''Чарльз Сандерс Пирс, или Оса в бутылке: введение в интеллектуальную историю Америки'' (''Charles Sanders Peirce, or the Wasp in the Bottle: An Introduction to the Intellectual History of America''), Territorija buduschego Publishing House, Moscow, March 2009.
* de Waal, Cornelis (2008), "Mina Samuels: ''The Queen of Cups''", ''Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society'' 44:1, winter, Inscribe, Indiana University Press. Mostly but not entirely critical review, itself informative about Juliette and Charles.
* Walther, Elisabeth (1989), ''Charles Sanders Peirce: Leben und Werk'', Agis-Verlag, in German. Recommended by Houser in his Introduction
, footnote 2, in ''Writings'' v. 6.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peirce, Juliette
1934 deaths
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Charles Sanders Peirce
Year of birth unknown
Tuberculosis deaths in Pennsylvania