Editing Augustin-Louis Cauchy (section)

===Youth and education===
Cauchy was the son of [[Louis François Cauchy]] (1760–1848) and Marie-Madeleine Desestre. Cauchy had two brothers: Alexandre Laurent Cauchy (1792–1857), who became a president of a division of the court of appeal in 1847 and a judge of the court of cassation in 1849, and Eugene François Cauchy (1802–1877), a publicist who also wrote several mathematical works. From his childhood he was good at math.

Cauchy married Aloise de Bure in 1818. She was a close relative of the publisher who published most of Cauchy's works. They had two daughters, Marie Françoise Alicia (1819) and Marie Mathilde (1823).

Cauchy's father was a highly ranked official in the Parisian police of the 
[[Ancien Régime]], but lost this position due to the [[French Revolution]] (14&nbsp;July 1789), which broke out one month before Augustin-Louis was born.{{efn|His father's dismissal is sometimes seen as the cause of the deep hatred of the French Revolution that Cauchy felt all through his life.}} The Cauchy family survived the revolution and the following [[Reign of Terror]] during 1793–94 by escaping to [[Arcueil]], where Cauchy received his first education, from his father.{{sfn|Bruno|Baker|2003|p=66}} After the execution of [[Robespierre]] in 1794, it was safe for the family to return to Paris. There, Louis-François Cauchy found a bureaucratic job in 1800,{{sfn|Bruno|Baker|2003|pp=65–66}} and quickly advanced his career. When [[Napoleon]] came to power in 1799, Louis-François Cauchy was further promoted, and became Secretary-General of the Senate, working directly under [[Pierre-Simon Laplace|Laplace]] (who is now better known for his work on mathematical physics). The mathematician [[Joseph Louis Lagrange|Lagrange]] was also a friend of the Cauchy family.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

On Lagrange's advice, Augustin-Louis was enrolled in the [[École Centrale du Panthéon]], the best secondary school of Paris at that time, in the fall of 1802.{{sfn|Bruno|Baker|2003|p=66}} Most of the curriculum consisted of classical languages; the ambitious Cauchy, being a brilliant student, won many prizes in Latin and the humanities. In spite of these successes, Cauchy chose an engineering career, and prepared himself for the entrance examination to the [[École Polytechnique]].

In 1805, he placed second of 293 applicants on this exam and was admitted.{{sfn|Bruno|Baker|2003|p=66}} One of the main purposes of this school was to give future civil and military engineers a high-level scientific and mathematical education. The school functioned under military discipline, which caused Cauchy some problems in adapting. Nevertheless, he completed the course in 1807, at age&nbsp;18, and went on to the [[École des Ponts et Chaussées]] (School for Bridges and Roads). He graduated in civil engineering, with the highest honors.