page_title: Caroline Massin
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Caroline Massin / Later life
caption_attribution_description: French lexicographer and philosopher Émile Littré (1801-1881)
context_page_description: Caroline Massin was a French seamstress known for her tempestuous marriage with the philosopher Auguste Comte during the most creative period of his life. Comte was mentally unstable and had jealous fantasies about his wife's infidelities. Early in the marriage he broke down and was confined to an asylum for several months. The marriage continued to be strained, with constant money worries. Although Caroline supported her husband and believed in his genius, Comte could never accept her independence. They separated after 17 years. In his last years Comte wrote an appendix to his will in which he accused Caroline of having been a prostitute, The slur was later repeated by his followers. After his death Caroline encouraged a sympathetic biographer of Comte and helped launch a magazine devoted to his philosophy of positivism.
context_section_description: Caroline Massin was intelligent and had some education.
  She was offered a job as a governess immediately after she finally separated from Comte.
  After Comte was dismissed from the École Polytechnique in 1844, his English collaborator John Stuart Mill gave him some immediate funds and arranged for three of his wealthy friends to provide him with a pension.
  Later his supporter Émile Littré arranged for a group of 73 of his French supporters to provide a stipend on which he could live comfortably.
  Some sources say that Caroline began an affair with Émile Littré.
  Certainly Comte broke with Littré due in part to jealousy of Littre's friendship with Caroline.
  After the break Comte began in visit his benefactors in person rather than have the funds delivered by Littre. 
  He continued to give half his money to Caroline.
  Caroline continued to correspond with Comte, and continued to help him.
  When the government refused to authorize him to continue teaching his course on the history of humanity in 1850, Caroline obtained an interview with Jean-Martial Bineau, the Minister of Public Works, and wrote follow-up letters that eventually resulted in renewal of the authorization.
  Due to the breakdown of their marriage, and because he had fallen in love with another woman, Clotilde de Vaux, Comte later tried to destroy her reputation. 
  He wrote a "secret addition" to his will in which he insinuated that she was a prostitute.
  Comte blamed Caroline for causing his mental breakdown in 1826-27, which he claimed had cost him four years of lost productive time.
  He described her as meretricious, unworthy, heartless and ungrateful.
  Caroline heard of Comte's death in September 1857 and attended the commemorative ceremony in his apartment, to the horror of his disciples.
  When she heard of the contents of the "secret addition" she was furious.
  She exercised her rights as widow of an author and owner of their common property.
  The marriage contract between her and Comte said she had contributed 20,000 francs to the household, and she exerted the rights to this amount in cash or property.
  She also had the rights to his writings, and could decide what could be published.
  She specifically wanted the will and the correspondence between her husband and Clotilde de Vaux suppressed.
  She encouraged Littré to write a biography of Comte in which he would promote his scientific positivism, but discredit the last years of his life when his mind was degenerating.
  She also helped establish the Revue de la Philosophie Positive, which was effective in consolidating Comte's reputation.
  Caroline Masson died on 27 January 1877 in Paris 75, aged 74.
  The insinuations in the "secret addition" have often been repeated by Comte's biographers.
  Letters that may have given a more complete picture were later destroyed by his disciples.
  Littré is the sole contemporary biographer to have given a sympathetic view of her character.
caption: Émile Littré, who arranged support for Comte and whom Caroline encouraged to write a biography of her husband
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