Alfred Binet was born on 8 July 1857 in Nice, France. Binet's father was a physician, but his parents separated and his mother raised him. Little is recorded about Binet's childhood. In 1884 Binet married Laure Balbiani, with whom he had two daughters, Madeleine B. Stern and Alice. Since about 1890, Binet had been observing and writing about his two daughters, Madeleine and Alice. Binet was introduced in about 1883 to the Salpetriere, a Paris hospital that was originally a gunpowder factory which Louis XIV converted into a hospital and asylum for the poor. It was at the Salpetriere that Binet met Jean-Martin Charcot, a physician and professor who had established there the greatest neurological clinic of the time. In 1891, Binet volunteered at the newly established Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the Sorbonne. He became director in 1894, a post he filled until his death in 1911.