Marie Curie was able to begin work. Their mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for one another. Eventually Pierre Curie proposed marriage, but at first Skłodowska did not accept as she was still planning to go back to her native country. Curie, however, declared that he was ready to move with her to Poland, even if it meant being reduced to teaching French. Meanwhile, for the 1894 summer break, Skłodowska returned to Warsaw, where she visited her family. She was still laboring under the illusion that she would be able to work in her
Marie-Paule Pileni Marie-Paule Pileni Marie-Paule Pileni is a French physical chemist who was born in Tananarive, Madagascar. She is a distinguished professor at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) and a Senior Member, since 1999, and administrator (2004–2011) of the Institut Universitaire de France, IUF. She is the daughter of Christophe Pileni, chief administrator of French Overseas possessions and Marie-Pasquine Micheletti, President of the Red Cross. She studied, from 1961 to 1966, at the Maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur (school for children of Légion d’Honneur members) then at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (1967–1969) and at the Université Paris-Sud