Page "Évariste Galois" Paragraph 16

Some archival investigation on the original letters suggests that the woman of romantic interest was a Mademoiselle Stéphanie-Félicie Poterin du Motel, the daughter of the physician at the hostel where Galois stayed during the last months of his life.

Fragments of letters from her copied by Galois himself ( with many portions either obliterated, such as her name, or deliberately omitted ) are available.

The letters hint that Mlle.

du Motel had confided some of her troubles to Galois, and this might have prompted him to provoke the duel himself on her behalf.

This conjecture is also supported by other letters Galois later wrote to his friends the night before he died.

Much more detailed speculation based on these scant historical details has been interpolated by many of Galois ' biographers ( most notably by Eric Temple Bell in Men of Mathematics ), such as the frequently repeated speculation that the entire incident was stage-managed by the police and royalist factions to eliminate a political enemy.