CHAPTER I

THE LIFE OF PASTEUR

“L’œuvre de Pasteur est admirable; elle montre son génie, mais il faut

avoir vécu dans son intimité pour connaître toute la bonté de son

cœur.”--DR. ROUX.

[Illustration: Portrait of LOUIS PASTEUR.]

THE

LIFE OF PASTEUR

BY RENÉ VALLERY-RADOT

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY

MRS. R. L. DEVONSHIRE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

SIR WILLIAM OSLER, BART., M.D., F.R.S.

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1920

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E. 1,

AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

INTRODUCTION

L’homme en ce siècle a pris une connaissance toute nouvelle des

ressource de la nature et, par l’application de son intelligence il

a commencé à les faire fructifier. Il a refait, par la géologie et

la paléontologie, l’histoire de la terre, entraînée elle-même par

la grande loi de l’évolution. Il connaît mieux, grâce à Pasteur

surtout, les conditions d’existence de son propre organisme et peut

entreprendre d’y combattre les causes de destruction.--Monod,

_L’Europe Contemporaine_.

Whether to admire more the man or his method, the life or the work, I

leave for the readers of this well-told story to decide. Among the

researches that have made the name of Pasteur a household word in the

civilised world, three are of the first importance--a knowledge of the

true nature of the processes in fermentation--a knowledge of the chief

maladies which have scourged man and animals--a knowledge of the

measures by which either the body may be protected against these

diseases, or the poison neutralised when once within the body.

I.

Our knowledge of disease has advanced in a curiously uniform way. The

objective features, the symptoms, naturally first attracted attention.

The Greek physicians, Hippocrates, Galen, and Aretaeus, gave excellent

accounts of many diseases; for example, the forms of malaria. They knew,

too, very well, their modes of termination, and the art of prognosis was

studied carefully. But of the actual causes of disease they knew little

or nothing, and any glimmerings of truth were obscured in a cloud of

theory. The treatment was haphazard, partly the outcome of experience,

partly based upon false theories of the cause of the disease. This may

be said to have been the sort of knowledge possessed by the profession

until men began to study the “seats and causes” of disease, and to

search out the changes _inside_ the body, corresponding to the outward

symptoms and the external appearances. Morbid anatomy began to be

studied, and in the hundred years from 1750 to 1850 such colossal

strides were made that we knew well the post-mortem appearances of the

more common diseases; the recognition of which was greatly helped by a

study of the relation of the pathological appearances with the signs and

symptoms. The 19th century may be said to have given us an

extraordinarily full knowledge of the changes which disease produces in

the solids and fluids of the body. Great advances, too, were made in the

treatment of disease. We learned to trust Nature more and drugs less; we

got rid (in part) of treatment by theory, and we ceased to have a drug

for every symptom. But much treatment was, and still is, irrational, not

based on a knowledge of the cause of the disease. In a blundering way

many important advances were made, and even specifics were

discovered--cinchona, for example, had cured malaria for a hundred and

fifty years before Laveran found the cause. At the middle of the last

century we did not know much more of the actual causes of the great

scourges of the race, the plagues, the fevers and the pestilences, than

did the Greeks. Here comes in Pasteur’s great work. Before him Egyptian

darkness; with his advent a light that brightens more and more as the

years give us ever fuller knowledge. The facts that fevers were

catching, that epidemics spread, that infection could remain attached to

particles of clothing, etc., all gave support to the view that the

actual cause was something alive, a _contagium vivum_. It was really a

very old view, the germs of which may be found in the Fathers, but which

was first clearly expressed--so far as I know--by Frascastorius, a

Veronese physician in the 16th century, who spoke of the seeds of

contagion passing from one person to another; and he first drew a

parallel between the processes of contagion and the fermentation of

wine. This was more than one hundred years before Kircher, Leeuwenhoek,

and others, began to use the microscope and to see animalculæ, etc., in

water, and so gave a basis for the “infinitely little” view of the

nature of disease germs. And it was a study of the processes of

fermentation that led Pasteur to the sure ground on which we now stand.

Starting as a pure chemist, and becoming interested in the science of

crystallography, it was not until his life at Lille, a town with

important brewing industries, that Pasteur became interested in the

biological side of chemical problems. Many years before it had been

noted by Cagniard-Latour that yeast was composed of cells capable of

reproducing themselves by a sort of budding, and he made the keen

suggestion that it was possibly through some effect of their vegetation

that the sugar was transformed. But Liebig’s view everywhere prevailed

that the ferment was an alterable, organic substance which exercised a

catalytic force, transforming the sugar. It was in August, 1857, that

Pasteur sent his famous paper on _Lactic Acid Fermentation_ to the Lille

Scientific Society; and in December of the same year he presented to the

Academy of Sciences a paper on _Alcoholic Fermentation_, in which he

concluded that the deduplication of sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid

is correlevant to a phenomena of life. These studies had the signal

effect of diverting the man from the course of his previous more

strictly chemical studies. It is interesting to note how slowly these

views dislocated the dominant theories of Liebig. More than ten years

after their announcement I remember that we had in our chemical lectures

the catalytic theory very fully presented.

Out of these researches arose a famous battle which kept Pasteur hard at

work for four or five years--the struggle over spontaneous generation.

It was an old warfare, but the microscope had revealed a new world, and

the experiments on fermentation had lent great weight to the _omne vivum

ex ovo_ doctrine. The famous Italians, Redi and Spallanzani, had led the

way in their experiments, and the latter had reached the conclusion that

there is no vegetable and no animal that has not its own germ. But

heterogenesis became the burning question, and Pouchet in France, and

Bastian in England, led the opposition to Pasteur. The many famous

experiments carried conviction to the minds of scientific men, and

destroyed for ever the old belief in spontaneous generation. All along

the analogy between disease and fermentation must have been in Pasteur’s

mind; and then came the suggestion: “What would be most desirable would

be to push those studies far enough to prepare the road for a serious

research into the origin of various diseases.” If the changes in lactic,

alcohol and butyric fermentations are due to minute living organisms,

why should not the same tiny creatures make the changes which occur in

the body in the putrid and suppurative diseases. With an accurate

training as a chemist, having been diverted in his studies upon

fermentation into the realm of biology, and nourishing a strong

conviction of the identity between putrefactive changes of the body and

fermentation, Pasteur was well prepared to undertake investigations,

which had hitherto been confined to physicians alone.

The first outcome of the researches of Pasteur upon fermentation and

spontaneous generation represents a transformation in the practice of

surgery, which, it is not too much to say, has been one of the greatest

boons ever conferred upon humanity. It had long been recognised that now

and again a wound healed without the formation of pus, that is without

suppuration, but both spontaneous and operative wounds were almost

invariably associated with that change; and, moreover, they frequently

became putrid, as it was then called--infected, as we should say; the

general system became involved, and the patient died of blood poisoning.

So common was this, particularly in old, ill-equipped hospitals, that

many surgeons feared to operate, and the general mortality in all

surgical cases was very high. Believing that from outside the germs came

which caused the decomposition of wounds, just as from the atmosphere

the sugar solution got the germs which caused the fermentation, a young

surgeon at Glasgow, Joseph Lister, applied the principles of Pasteur’s

experiments to their treatment. It may be well here to quote from

Lister’s original paper in the _Lancet_, 1867:--“Turning now to the

question how the atmosphere produces decomposition of organic

substances, we find that a flood of light has been thrown upon this most

important subject by the philosophic researches of M. Pasteur, who has

demonstrated by thoroughly convincing evidence that it is not to its

oxygen or to any of its gaseous constituents that the air owes this

property, but to minute particles suspended in it, which are the germs

of various low forms of life, long since revealed by the microscope, and

regarded as merely accidental concomitants of putrescence, but now shown

by Pasteur to be its essential cause, resolving the complex organic

compounds into substances of simpler chemical constitution, just as the

yeast plant converts sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid.” From these

beginnings modern surgery took its rise, and the whole subject of wound

infection, not only in relation to surgical diseases, but to child-bed

fever, forms now one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of

Preventive Medicine.

II.

Pasteur was early impressed with the analogies between fermentation and

putrefaction and the infectious diseases, and in 1863 he assured the

French Emperor that his ambition was “to arrive at the knowledge of the

causes of putrid and contagious diseases.” After a study upon the

diseases of wines, which has had most important practical bearings, an

opportunity came of the very first importance, which not only changed

the whole course of his career, but had great influence in the

development of medical science. A disease of the silkworm had, for some

years, ruined one of the most important industries of France, and in

1865 the Government asked Pasteur to give up the laboratory work and

teaching, and to devote his whole energies to the task of investigating

it. The story of the brilliant success which followed years of

application to the problem will be read with deep interest by every

student of science. It was the first of his victories in the application

of the experimental methods of a trained chemist to the problems of

biology, and it placed his name high in the group of the most

illustrious benefactors of practical industries.

The national tragedy of 1870-2 nearly killed Pasteur. He had a terrible

pilgrimage to make in search of his son, a sergeant in Bourbaki’s force.

“The retreat from Moscow cannot have been worse than this,” said the

_savant_. In October, 1868, he had had a stroke of paralysis, from which

he recovered in a most exceptional way, as it seemed to have diminished

neither his enthusiasm nor his energy. In a series of studies on the

diseases of beer, and on the mode of production of vinegar, he became

more and more convinced that these studies on fermentation had given him

the key to the nature of the infectious diseases. It is a remarkable

fact that the distinguished English philosopher of the seventeenth

century, the man who more than any one else of his century appreciated

the importance of the experimental method, Robert Boyle, had said that

he who could discover the nature of ferments and fermentation, would be

more capable than anyone else of explaining the nature of certain

diseases. The studies on spontaneous generation, and Lister’s

application of the germ theory to the treatment of wounds, had aroused

the greatest interest in the medical world, and Villemin, in a series of

most brilliant experiments, had demonstrated the infectivity of

tuberculosis. An extraordinary opportunity now offered for the study of

a widespread epidemic disease, known as anthrax, which in many parts of

France killed from 25 to 30 per cent. of the sheep and cattle, and which

in parts of Europe had been pandemic, attacking both man and beast. As

far back as 1838 minute rods had been noted in the blood of animals

which had died from the disease; and in 1863 Devaine thought that these

little bodies, which he called bacteridia, were the cause of the

disease. In 1876 a young German district physician, Robert Koch, began a

career, which in interest and importance rivals that of the subject of

this memoir. Koch confirmed in every point the old researches of

Devaine; but he did much more, and for the first time isolated the

organism in pure culture outside the body, grew successive generations,

showed the remarkable spore formation, and produced the disease

artificially in animals by inoculating with the cultures. Pasteur

confirmed these results, and in the face of extraordinary opposition

succeeded in convincing his opponents. Out of this study came a still

more important discovery, namely, that it was possible so to attenuate

or weaken the virus or poison that the animal could be inoculated, and

have a slight attack, recover, and be protected against the disease.

More than eighty years had passed since, on May 14th, 1796, Jenner, with

a small bit of virus taken from a cow-pox on the hand of the milkmaid,

Sarah Newlme, had vaccinated a child, and thus proved that a slight

attack of one disease would protect the body from disease of a similar

character. It was an occasion famous in the history of medicine, when,

in the spring of 1881, at Melun, at the farmyard of Pouilly le Fort, the

final test case was determined, and the flock of vaccinated sheep

remained well, while every one of the unvaccinated, inoculated from the

same material, had died. It was indeed a great triumph.

The studies on chicken cholera, yellow fever, and on swine plague helped

to further the general acceptance of the germ theory. I well remember at

the great meeting of the International Congress in 1881, the splendid

reception accorded to the distinguished Frenchman, who divided with

Virchow the honours of the meeting. Finally came the work upon one of

the most dreaded of all diseases--hydrophobia, an infection of a most

remarkable character, the germ of which remains undiscovered. The

practical results of Pasteur’s researches have given us a prophylactic

treatment of great efficacy. Before its introduction the only means of

preventing the development of the disease was a thorough cauterisation

of the disease wound within half an hour after its infliction. Pasteur

showed that animals could be made immune to the poison, and devised a

method by which the infection conveyed by the bite could be neutralised.

Pasteur Institutes for the treatment of hydrophobia have been

established in different countries, and where the disease is widely

prevalent have been of the greatest benefit. Except at the London

Congress, the only occasion on which I saw the great master was in 1891

or 1892, when he demonstrated at the Institute to a group of us the

technique of the procedure, and then superintended the inoculations of

the day. A large number of persons are treated in the course of the

year; a good many, of course, have not been bitten by mad dogs; but a

very careful classification is made:--

(_a_) Includes persons bitten by dogs proved experimentally to have been

mad.

(_b_) Persons bitten by dogs declared to be mad by competent veterinary

surgeons.

(_c_) All other cases.

The mortality even in Class A is very slight, though many patients are

not brought until late. Incidentally it may be remarked the lesson of

this country in its treatment of hydrophobia is one of the most

important ever presented in connection with an infectious disease. There

are no Pasteur Institutes; there are no cases. Why? The simple muzzling

order has prevented the transmission of the disease from dog to dog, and

once exterminated in the dog, the possibility of the infection in man

had gone. In 1888 the crowning work of Pasteur’s life was the

establishment of an Institute to serve as a centre of study on

contagious disease, and a dispensary for the treatment of hydrophobia,

which is to-day the most important single centre of research in the

world. The closing years of his life were full of interest in the work

of his colleagues and assistants, and he had the great satisfaction of

participating, with his assistant Roux, in another great victory over

the dread scourge, diphtheria. Before his death in 1895 he had seen his

work prosper in a way never before granted to any great discoverer. To

no one man has it ever been given to accomplish work of such great

importance for the well-being of humanity. As Paul Bert expressed it in

the report to the French Government, Pasteur’s work constitutes three

great discoveries, which may be thus formulated. 1. Each fermentation is

produced by the development of a special microbe.

2. Each infectious disease is produced by the development within the

organism of a special microbe.

3. The microbe of an infectious disease culture, under certain

detrimental condition is attenuated in its pathogenic activity; from a

virus it has become a vaccine.

In an address delivered in Edinburgh by Sir James Simpson in 1853, in

which he extolled the recent advancement of physic, occur these

words:--“I do not believe, that, at the present moment, any individual

in the profession, who, in surgery or in midwifery, could point out some

means of curing--or some prophylactic means of averting by antecedent

treatment--the liability to these analogous or identical diseases--viz.,

surgical or puerperal fever--such a fortunate individual would, I say,

make, in relation to surgery and midwifery, a greater and more important

discovery than could possibly be attained by any other subject of

investigation. Nor does such a result seem hopelessly unattainable.”

Little did he think that the fulfilment of these words was in the

possession of a young Englishman who had just gone to Edinburgh as an

assistant to his colleague, Professor Syme. Lister’s recognition of the

importance of Pasteur’s studies led to the fulfilment within this

generation of the pious hope expressed by Simpson. In Institutions and

Hospitals surgical infection and puerperal fevers are things of the

past, and for this achievement if for nothing else, the names of Louis

Pasteur and Joseph Lister will go down to posterity among those of the

greatest benefactors of humanity.

III.

In his growth the man kept pace with the scientist--heart and head held

even sway in his life. To many whose estimate of French character is

gained from “yellow” literature this story will reveal the true side of

a great people, in whom filial piety, brotherly solicitude, generosity,

and self-sacrifice are combined with a rare devotion to country. Was

there ever a more charming picture than that of the family at Dôle!

Napoleon’s old sergeant, Joseph Pasteur, is almost as interesting a

character as his illustrious son; and we follow the joys and sorrows of

the home with unflagging attention. Rarely has a great man been able to

pay such a tribute to his father as that paid by Pasteur:--“For thirty

years I have been his constant care, I owe everything to him.”

This is a biography for young men of science, and for others who wish to

learn what science has done, and may do, for humanity. From it may be

gleaned three lessons.

The value of method, of technique, in the hands of a great master has

never been better illustrated. Just as Harvey, searching out Nature by

way of experiment, opened the way for a study of the functions of the

body in health, so did Pasteur, bringing to the problems of biology the

same great _organon_, shed a light upon processes the nature of which

had defied the analysis of the keenest minds. From Dumas’s letter to

Pasteur, quoted in Chapter VI., a paragraph may be given in

illustration:--“The art of observation and that of experiment are very

distinct. In the first case, the fact may either proceed from logical

reasons or be mere good fortune; it is sufficient to have some

penetration and the sense of truth in order to profit by it. But the art

of experimentation leads from the first to the last link of the chain,

without hesitation and without a blank, making successive use of Reason,

which suggests an alternative, and of Experience, which decides on it,

until, starting from a faint glimmer, the full blaze of light is

reached.” Pasteur had the good fortune to begin with chemistry, and with

the science of crystallography, which demanded extraordinary accuracy,

and developed that patient persistence so characteristic of all his

researches.

In the life of a young man the most essential thing for happiness is the

gift of friendship. And here is the second great lesson. As a Frenchman,

Pasteur had the devotion that marks the students of that nation to their

masters, living and dead. Not the least interesting parts of this work

are the glimpses we get of the great teachers with whom he came in

contact. What a model of a scientific man is shown in the character of

Biot, so keenly alive to the interests of his young friend, whose

brilliant career he followed with the devotion of a second father. One

of the most touching incidents recorded in the book relates to

Pasteur’s election to the Academy of Sciences:--“The next morning when

the gates of the Montparnasse cemetery were opened, a woman walked

towards Biot’s grave with her hands full of flowers. It was Mme. Pasteur

who was bringing them to him ... who had loved Pasteur with so deep an

affection.” Pasteur looked upon the cult of great men as a great

principle in national education. As he said to the students of the

University of Edinburgh:--“Worship great men”;[1] and this reverence for

the illustrious dead was a dominant element in his character, though the

doctrines of Positivism seemed never to have had any attraction for him.

A dark shadow in the scientific life is often thrown by a spirit of

jealousy, and the habit of suspicious, carping criticism. The hall-mark

of a small mind, this spirit should never be allowed to influence our

judgment of a man’s work, and to young men a splendid example is here

offered of a man devoted to his friends, just and generous to his

rivals, and patient under many trying contradictions and vexatious

oppositions.

And the last great lesson is humility before the unsolved problems of

the Universe. Any convictions that might be a comfort in the sufferings

of human life had his respectful sympathy. His own creed was beautifully

expressed in his eulogy upon _Littré_:--“He who proclaims the existence

of the Infinite, and none can avoid it--accumulates in that affirmation

more of the supernatural than is to be found in all the miracles of all

the religions; for the notion of the Infinite presents that double

character that it forces itself upon us and yet is incomprehensible.

When this notion seizes upon our understanding, we can but kneel.... I

see everywhere the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world;

through it, the supernatural is at the bottom of every heart. The idea

of God is a form of the idea of the Infinite. As long as the mystery of

the Infinite weighs on human thought, temples will be erected for the

worship of the Infinite, whether God is called Brahma, Allah, Jehovah,

or Jesus; and on the pavement of those temples, men will be seen

kneeling, prostrated, annihilated in the thought of the Infinite.” And

modern Pantheism has never had a greater disciple, whose life and work

set forth the devotion to an ideal--that service to humanity is service

to God:--“Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and

who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel

virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions;

they all reflect light from the Infinite.”

The future belongs to Science. More and more she will control the

destinies of the nations. Already she has them in her crucible and on

her balances. In her new mission to humanity she preaches a new gospel.

In the nineteenth century renaissance she has had great apostles,

Darwin, for example, whose gifts of heart and head were in equal

measure, but after re-reading for the third or fourth time the _Life of

Louis Pasteur_, I am of the opinion, expressed recently by the anonymous

writer of a beautiful tribute in the _Spectator_, “that he was the most

perfect man who has ever entered the Kingdom of Science.”

WILLIAM OSLER.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Sir William Osler, Bart., M.D., F.R.S., v.

CHAPTER I

1822--1843

Origin of the Pasteur Family, 1--Jean Joseph Pasteur, a Conscript in

1811; Sergeant-major in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3; a Knight

of the Legion of Honour, 4; his Marriage, 5; the Tannery at Dôle,

6--Birth of Louis Pasteur, his Childhood and Youth, 6. Studies in

Arbois College, 7. Departure for Paris, 11. Arrival in Paris, 11;

the Barbet Boarding School, Home Sickness, 11. Return to Jura,

Pasteur a Portrait Painter, 12; enters Besançon Royal College, 13;

a Bachelier ès Lettres, a Preparation Master, 14; his Readings, 15.

Friendship with Chappuis, 18; a Bachelier ès Sciences, 20; Pasteur

admitted to the Ecole Normale, 22; Sorbonne Lectures, Impression

produced by J. B. Dumas, 21.

CHAPTER II

1844--1849

First Crystallographic Researches, 26; Pasteur a Curator in Balard’s

Laboratory, works with Auguste Laurent, 32. Chemistry and

Physics Theses, 34. Pasteur reads a Paper at the Académie des

Sciences, 36. February days, 1848, 37. Molecular Dissymmetry,

38; J. J. Biot’s Emotion at Pasteur’s first Discovery, 41. Pasteur

Professor of Physics at Dijon, 43. Professor of Chemistry at the

Strasburg Faculty, his Friend Bertin, 45; M. Laurent, Rector of

the Strasburg Academy, 47; Pasteur’s Marriage, 51.

CHAPTER III

1850--1854

Disgrace of the Strasburg Rector, 54. Letter from Biot to Pasteur’s

Father, 57. Letter from J. B. Dumas, 60. Interview with Mitscherlich,

61. Pasteur in quest of Racemic Acid, in Germany, Austria

and Bohemia, 62. Pasteur a Knight of the Legion of Honour, 70.

Biot’s Congratulations, 70. Proposed Work, 72.

CHAPTER IV

1855--1859

Pasteur Dean of the new Lille Faculty, 75; his Teaching, 77; First

Studies on Fermentations, 79. First Candidature for the Academy

of Sciences, 81. Lactic Fermentation, 83. Pasteur Administrator

of the Ecole Normale, 84. Alcoholic Fermentation, 85. Death of

Pasteur’s eldest Daughter, 86.

CHAPTER V

1860--1864

So-called spontaneous Generation, 88. Polemics and Experiments, 92.

Renewed Candidature for the Académie des Sciences, 100. Lectures

on Crystallography, 102. Pasteur elected a Member of the Académie

des Sciences, 103. Conversation with Napoleon III, 104. Lecture

at the Sorbonne on so-called spontaneous Generation, 106. Pasteur

and the Students of the Ecole Normale, 109. Discussions raised

by the question of spontaneous Generation, 111. Studies on

Wine, 113.

CHAPTER VI

1865--1870

The Silkworm Disease; Pasteur sent to Alais, 115. Death of Jean

Joseph Pasteur, 118. Return to Paris, 121; Pasteur’s Article on

J. B. Dumas’ Edition of Lavoisier’s Works, 122. Death of his

Daughter Camille, 123. Candidature of Ch. Robin for the Académie

des Sciences, 124. Letters exchanged between Ste. Beuve and

Pasteur, 124. The Cholera, 126. Pasteur at Compiègne Palace,

127. Return to the Gard, 130; Pasteur’s Collaborators, 130. Death

of his Daughter Cécile, 131. Letter to Duruy, 131. Publication of

the _Studies on Wine_, 133. Pasteur’s Article on Claude Bernard’s

Work, 134. Pasteur’s Work in the South of France, 138. Letter

from Duruy, 139. Pasteur a Laureate of the Exhibition, 140;

solemn Distribution of Rewards, 141. Ste. Beuve at the Senate,

142. Disturbance at the Ecole Normale, 143. Pasteur’s Letter to

Napoleon III, 147. Lecture on the Manufacture of Vinegar at

Orleans, 148. Council of Scientists at the Tuileries, 154. Studies

on Silkworm Diseases (continued), 155. Heating of Wines, 157.

Paralytic Stroke, 160; Illness, 161; private Reading, 163. Enlargement

of the Laboratory, 164. Pasteur in the South, 166. Success

of his Method of opposing Silkworm Diseases, 168. Pasteur at

Villa Vicentina, Austria, 173. Interview with Liebig, 176.

CHAPTER VII

1870--1872

Pasteur in Strasburg, 177; the War, 179; Pasteur at Arbois, 180. The

Académie des Sciences during the Siege of Paris, 186. Pasteur

returns his Doctor’s Diploma to the Bonn Faculty of Medicine, 189.

Retreat of Bourbaki’s Army Corps, 192; Pasteur at Pontarlier,

192. Pasteur at Lyons, 194. “Why France found no superior Men

in the Hours of Peril,” 194. Proposed Studies, 198. Professorship

offered to Pasteur at Pisa, 200; his Refusal, 200. The Prussians

at Arbois, 201. Pasteur and his Pupil Raulin, 203. Pasteur at

Clermont Ferrand; stays with his Pupil M. Duclaux, 206. Studies

on Beer, 207. Visit to London Breweries, 210. Renewed Discussions

at the Académie des Sciences, 216.

CHAPTER VIII

1873--1877

Pasteur elected to the Académie de Médecine, 225. General Condition

of Medicine, 226. Surgery before Pasteur, 234. Influence of his

Work, 236. Letter from Lister, 238. Debates at the Académie de

Médecine, 240; Science and Religion, 244. National Testimonial,

245. Pasteur a Candidate for the Senate, 248. Speech at the Milan

Congress of Sericiculture, 251. Letter from Tyndall, 252. Discussion

with Dr. Bastian, 253.

CHAPTER IX

1877--1879

Charbon, or Splenic Fever, 257; Pasteur studies it, 259. Traditional

Medicine and Pastorian Doctrines, 263. Progress of Surgery, 266.

The word Microbe invented, 266; renewed Attacks against Pasteur,

267. Charbon given to Hens--experiment before the Académie de

Médecine, 268. Pasteur’s Note on the Germ Theory, 271. Campaign

of Researches on Charbon, 275. Critical Examination of a

posthumous Note by Claude Bernard, 281. Pasteur in the Hospitals,

289; Puerperal Fever, 289.

CHAPTER X

1880--1882

Chicken Cholera, 297. Attenuation of the Virus, 299. Suggested

Researches on the bubonic Plague, 301. The Share of Earthworms in the

Development of Charbon, 304; an Incident at the Académie de Médecine,

309. The Vaccine of Charbon, 311; public Experiment at Pouilly le Fort

on the Vaccination of Splenic Fever, 316. First Experiments on

Hydrophobia, 318. Death of Sainte-Claire Deville, 326; Pasteur’s Speech,

327. Pasteur at the London Medical Congress, 329; Virchow and

Anti-vivisection, 332. Yellow Fever, 338; Pasteur at Pauillac, 338.

CHAPTER XI

1882--1884

Pasteur elected a Member of the Académie Française, 341; his Opinions

on Positivism, 342; J. B. Dumas and Nisard, his Sponsors, 344;

Pasteur welcomed by Renan into the Académie Française, 346.

Homage from Melun, from Aubenas, 350; Pasteur at Nîmes and

at Montpellier, 353. Speech of J. B. Dumas, 354; Pasteur’s

Answer, 355. Pasteur at the Geneva Conference of Hygiene, 358.

Studies on the Rouget of Pigs--Journey to Bollène, 360. Typhoid

Fever and the Champions of old Medical Methods, 364. Pasteur

and the Turin Veterinary School, 368. Marks of Gratitude from

Agriculturists, 372; Pasteur at Aurillac, 373. Another Testimonial

of national Gratitude, 374; a commemorative Plate on the House

where Pasteur was born, 376; his Speech at the Ceremony, 377.

Cholera, 378; French Mission to Alexandria, 379. Death of

Thuillier, 380. J. B. Dumas’ last Letter to Pasteur, 383. Third

Centenary of the University of Edinburgh--the French Delegation,

384; Ovation to Pasteur, 386; Pasteur’s Speech, 386.

CHAPTER XII

1884--1885

The Hydrophobia Problem, 390; preventive Inoculations on Dogs, 395.

Experiments on Hydrophobia verified by a Commission, 396. The Copenhagen

Medical Congress, Pasteur in Denmark, 399. Installation at Villeneuve

l’Etang of a Branch Establishment of Pasteur’s Laboratory, 406. Former

Remedies against Hydrophobia, 407. Kennels at Villeneuve l’Etang, 410.

CHAPTER XIII

1885--1888

First Antirabic Inoculation on Man, 414; the little Alsatian Boy, Joseph

Meister, 415. Pasteur at Arbois; his Speech for the Welcome of

Joseph Bertrand, succeeding J. B. Dumas at the Académie Française,

418. Perraud the Sculptor, 421. Inoculation of the Shepherd

Jupille, 422; the Discovery of the Preventive Treatment of Rabies

announced to the Académie des Sciences and the Académie de

Médecine, 422. Death of Louise Pelletier, 426; Pasteur’s Solicitude

for inoculated Patients, 427. Foundation of the Pasteur

Institute, 428; the Russians from Smolensk, 429; English Commission

for the Verification of the Inoculations against Hydrophobia,

430. Fête at the Trocadéro, 431. Temporary Buildings in the Rue

Vauquelin for the Treatment of Hydrophobia, 432. Ill-health of

Pasteur, 433; his Stay at Bordighera, 434. Foundation of the

_Annals of the Pasteur Institute_, 434. Discussions on Rabies at the

Académie de Médecine, 434. Earthquake at Bordighera, 436.

Pasteur returns to France, 437. Report of the English Commission

on the Treatment of Rabies, 437. Pasteur elected Permanent

Secretary of the Académie des Sciences, 439; his Resignation, 439.

Inauguration of the Pasteur Institute, 440.

CHAPTER XIV

1889--1895

Influence of Pasteur’s Labours, 445; his Jubilee, 447; Speech, 450.

Pasteur’s Name given to a District in Canada and to a Village in

Algeria, 451. Diphtheria, M. Roux’ Studies in Serotherapy, 453;

Pasteur at Lille; Lecture by M. Roux on Serotherapy, 456; repeated

at the Buda-Pesth Congress, 456. Subscription for the Organization

of the Antidiphtheritic Treatment, 456. Pasteur’s Disciples,

457. Pasteur’s Illness, 458; Visit from Alexandre Dumas, 460;

Visit from former Ecole Normale Students, 460. Pasteur refuses a

German Decoration, 461. Conversations with Chappuis, 462. Departure

for Villeneuve l’Etang, 462; last Weeks, 463. Project for

a Pasteur Hospital, 464. Death of Pasteur, 464.

Index 465

CHAPTER I

1822--1843

The origin of even the humblest families can be traced back by

persevering search through the ancient parochial registers. Thus the

name of Pasteur is to be found written at the beginning of the

seventeenth century in the old registers of the Priory of Mouthe, in the

province of Franche Comté. The Pasteurs were tillers of the soil, and

originally formed a sort of tribe in the small village of Reculfoz,

dependent on the Priory, but they gradually dispersed over the country.

The registers of Mièges, near Nozeroy, contain an entry of the marriage

of Denis Pasteur and Jeanne David, dated February 9, 1682. This Denis,

after whom the line of Pasteur’s ancestors follows in an unbroken

record, lived in the village of Plénisette, where his eldest son Claude

was born in 1683. Denis afterward sojourned for some time in the village

of Douay, and ultimately forsaking the valley of Mièges came to Lemuy,

where he worked as a miller for Claude François Count of Udressier, a

noble descendant of a secretary of the Emperor Charles V.

Lemuy is surrounded by wide plains affording pasture for herds of oxen.

In the distance the pine trees of the forest of Joux stand close

together, like the ranks of an immense army, their dark masses deepening

the azure of the horizon. It was in those widespreading open lands that

Pasteur’s ancestors lived. Near the church, overshadowed by old beech

and lime trees, a tombstone is to be found overgrown with grass. Some

members of the family lie under that slab naïvely inscribed: “Here lie,

each by the side of the others....”

In 1716, in the mill at Lemuy, ruins of which still exist, the marriage

contract of Claude Pasteur was drawn up and signed in the presence of

Henry Girod, Royal notary of Salins. The father and mother declared

themselves unable to write, but we have the signatures of the affianced

couple, Claude Pasteur and Jeanne Belle, affixed to the record of the

quaint betrothal oath of the time. This Claude was in his turn a miller

at Lemuy, though at his death in 1746 he is only mentioned as a labourer

in the parish register. He had eight children, the youngest, whose name

was Claude Etienne, and who was born in the village of Supt, a few

kilometres from Lemuy, being Louis Pasteur’s great-grandfather.

What ambition, what love of adventures induced him to leave the Jura

plains to come down to Salins? A desire for independence in the literal

sense of the word. According to the custom then still in force in

Franche Comté (in contradiction to the name of that province, as

Voltaire truly remarks), there were yet some serfs, that is to say,

people legally incapable of disposing of their goods or of their

persons. They were part of the possessions of a nobleman or of the lands

of a convent or monastery. Denis Pasteur and his son had been serfs of

the Counts of Udressier. Claude Etienne desired to be freed and

succeeded in achieving this at the age of thirty, as is proved by a

deed, dated March 20, 1763, drawn up in the presence of the Royal

notary, Claude Jarry. Messire Philippe-Marie-François, Count of

Udressier, Lord of Ecleux, Cramans, Lemuy and other places, consented

“by special grace” to free Claude Etienne Pasteur, a tanner, of Salins,

his serf. The deed stipulated that Claude Etienne and his unborn

posterity should henceforth be enfranchised from the stain of mortmain.

Four gold pieces of twenty-four livres were paid then and there in the

mansion of the Count of Udressier by the said Pasteur.

The following year, he married Françoise Lambert. After setting up

together a small tannery in the Faubourg Champtave they enjoyed the

fairy tale ideal of happiness: they had ten children. The third, Jean

Henri, through whom this genealogy continues, was born in 1769. On June

25, 1779, letters giving Claude Etienne Pasteur the freedom of the city

of Salins were delivered to him by the Town Council.

Jean Henri Pasteur, in his twentieth year, went to Besançon to seek his

fortune as a tanner, but was not successful. His wife, Gabrielle

Jourdan, died at the age of twenty, and he married again, but himself

died at twenty-seven, leaving one little son by his first marriage, Jean

Joseph Pasteur, born March 16, 1791. This child, who was to be Louis

Pasteur’s father, was taken charge of by his grandmother at Salins;

later on, his father’s sisters, one married to a wood merchant named

Chamecin, and the other to Philibert Bourgeois, Chamecin’s partner,

adopted the orphan. He was carefully brought up, but without much

learning; it was considered sufficient in those days to be able to read

the Emperor’s bulletins; the rest did not seem to matter very much.

Besides, Jean Joseph had to earn his living at the tanner’s trade, which

had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before him.

Jean Joseph was drawn as a conscript in 1811, and went through the

Peninsular War in 1812 and 1813. He belonged to the 3rd Regiment of the

Line, whose mission was to pursue in the northern Spanish provinces the

guerillas of the famous Espoz y Mina. A legend grew round this wonderful

man; he was said to make his own gunpowder in the bleak mountain passes;

his innumerable partisans were supplied with arms and ammunition by the

English cruisers. He dragged women and old men after him, and little

children acted as his scouts. Once or twice however, in May, 1812, the

terrible Mina was very nearly caught; but in July he was again as

powerful as ever. The French had to organize mobile columns to again

occupy the coast and establish communications with France. There was

some serious fighting. Mina and his followers were incessantly harassing

the small French contingent of the 3rd and 4th Regiments, which were

almost alone. “How many traits of bravery,” writes Tissot, “will remain

unknown which on a larger field would have been rewarded and honoured!”

The records of the 3rd Regiment allow us to follow step by step this

valiant little troop, and among the rank and file, doing his duty

steadily through terrible hardships, that private soldier (a corporal in

July, 1812, and a sergeant in October, 1813) whose name was Pasteur. The

battalion returned to France at the end of January, 1814. It formed a

part of that Leval division which, numbering barely 8,000 men, had to

fight at Bar-sur-Aube against an army of 40,000 enemies. The 3rd

Regiment was called “brave amongst the brave.” “If Napoleon had had none

but such soldiers,” writes Thiers in his _History of the Consulate and

the Empire_, “the result of that great struggle would certainly have

been different.” The Emperor, touched by so much courage, distributed

crosses among the men. Pasteur was made a sergeant-major on March 10,

1814, and received, two days later, the cross of the Legion of Honour.

At the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube (March 21) the Leval division had again

to stand against 50,000 men--Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, and

Wurtembergers. Pasteur’s battalion, the 1st of the 3rd Regiment, came

back to St. Dizier and went on by forced marches to Fontainebleau, where

Napoleon had concentrated all his forces, arriving on April 4. The

battalion was now reduced to eight officers and 276 men. The next day,

at twelve o’clock, the Leval division and the remnant of the 7th corps

were gathered in the yard of the Cheval Blanc Inn and were reviewed by

Napoleon. The attitude of these soldiers, who had heroically fought in

Spain and in France, and who were still offering their passionate

devotion, gave him a few moments’ illusion. Their enthusiasm and

acclamations contrasted with the coldness, the reserve, the almost

insubordinations of Generals like Ney, Lefebvre, Oudinot and MacDonald,

who had just declared that to march on Paris would be folly.

Marmont’s defection hastened events; the Emperor, seeing himself

forsaken, abdicated. Jean Joseph Pasteur had not, like Captain Coignet,

the sad privilege of witnessing the Emperor’s farewell, his battalion

having been sent into the department of Eure on April 9. On April 23 the

white cockade replaced the tricolour.

On May 12, 1814, a royal order gave to the 3rd line Regiment the name of

“Régiment Dauphin”; it was reorganized at Douai, where Sergeant-major

Pasteur received his discharge from the service. He returned to Besançon

with grief and anger in his heart: for him, as for many others risen

from the people, Napoleon was a demi-god. Lists of victories, principles

of equality, new ideas scattered throughout the nations, had followed

each other in dazzling visions. It was a cruel trial for half-pay

officers, old sergeants, grenadiers, peasant soldiers, to come down from

this imperial epic to every-day monotony, police supervision, and the

anxieties of poverty; their wounded patriotism was embittered by

feelings of personal humiliation. Jean Joseph resigned himself to his

fate and went back to his former trade. The return from Elba was a ray

of joy and hope in his obscure life, only to be followed by renewed

darkness.

He was living in the Faubourg Champtave a solitary life in accordance

with his tastes and character when this solitude was interrupted for an

instant. The Mayor of Salins, a knight of Malta and an ardent royalist,

ordered all the late soldiers of Napoleon, the “_brigands de la Loire_”

as they were now called, to bring their sabres to the Mairie. Joseph

Pasteur reluctantly obeyed; but when he heard that these glorious

weapons were destined to police service, and would be used by police

agents, further submission seemed to him intolerable. He recognized his

own sergeant-major’s sabre, which had just been given to an agent, and,

springing upon the man, wrested the sword from him. Great excitement

ensued--a mixture of indignation, irritation and repressed enthusiasm;

the numerous Bonapartists in the town began to gather together. An

Austrian regiment was at that time still garrisoned in the town. The

Mayor appealed to the colonel, asking him to repress this disobedience;

but the Austrian officer refused to interfere, declaring that he both

understood and approved the military feelings which actuated the

ex-sergeant-major. Pasteur was allowed to keep his sword, and returned

home accompanied by sympathizers who were perhaps more noisily

enthusiastic than he could have wished.

Having peacefully resumed his work he made the acquaintance of a

neighbouring family of gardeners, whose garden faced his tannery on the

other bank of the “Furieuse,” a river rarely deserving its name. From

the steps leading to the water Jean Joseph Pasteur often used to watch a

young girl working in the garden at early dawn. She soon perceived that

the “old soldier”--very young still; he was but twenty-five years

old--was interested in her every movement. Her name was Jeanne

Etiennette Roqui.

Her parents, natives of Marnoz, a village about four kilometres from

Salins, belonged to one of the most ancient plebeian families of the

country. The Salins archives mention a Roqui working in vineyards as far

back as 1555, and in 1659 there were Roqui lampmakers and plumbers. The

members of this family were in general so much attached to each other

that “to love like the Roqui” had become proverbial; their wills and

testaments mentioned legacies or gifts from brother to brother, uncle to

nephew. In 1816 the father and mother of Jeanne Etiennette were living

very quietly in the old Salins faubourg. Their daughter was modest,

intelligent and kind; Jean Joseph Pasteur asked for her hand in

marriage. They seemed made for each other; the difference in their

natures only strengthened their mutual affection: he was reserved,

almost secretive, with a slow and careful mind apparently absorbed in

his own inner life; she was very active, full of imagination, and ready

enthusiasm.

The young couple migrated to Dôle and settled down in the Rue des

Tanneurs. Their first child only lived a few months; in 1818 a little

daughter came. Four years later in a small room of their humble home, on

Friday, December 27, 1822, at 2 a.m., Louis Pasteur was born.

Two daughters were born later--one at Dôle and the other at Marnoz, in

the house of the Roqui. Jean Joseph Pasteur’s mother-in-law, now a

widow, considering that her great age no longer allowed her to

administer her fortune, had divided all she possessed between her son

Jean Claude Roqui, a landed proprietor at Marnoz, and Jeanne Etiennette

her daughter.

Thus called away from Dôle by family interests, Jean Joseph Pasteur came

to live at Marnoz. The place was not very favourable to his trade,

though a neighbouring brook rendered the establishment of a tannery

possible. The house, though many times altered, still bears the name of

“Maison Pasteur.” On one of the inner doors the veteran, who had a taste

for painting, had depicted a soldier in an old uniform now become a

peasant and tilling the soil. This figure stands against a background of

grey sky and distant hills; leaning on his spade the man suspends his

labours and dreams of past glories. It is easy to criticize the faults

in the painting, but the sentimental allegory is full of feeling.

Louis Pasteur’s earliest recollections dated from that time; he could

remember running joyously along the Aiglepierre road. The Pasteur family

did not remain long at Marnoz. A tannery was to let in the neighbourhood

by the town of Arbois, near the bridge which crosses the Cuisance, and

only a few kilometres from the source of the river. The house, behind

its modest frontage, presented the advantage of a yard where pits had

been dug for the preparation of the skins. Joseph Pasteur took this

little house and settled there with his wife and children.

Louis Pasteur was sent at first to the “Ecole Primaire” attached to the

college of Arbois. Mutual teaching was then the fashion; scholars were

divided into groups: one child taught the rudiments of reading to

others, who then spelt aloud in a sort of sing-song. The master, M.

Renaud, went from group to group designating the monitors. Louis soon

desired to possess this title, perhaps all the more so because he was

the smallest scholar. But those who would decorate the early years of

Louis Pasteur with wonderful legends would be disappointed: when a

little later he attended the daily classes at the Arbois college he

belonged merely to the category of good average pupils. He took several

prizes without much difficulty; he rather liked buying new lesson books,

on the first page of which he proudly wrote his name. His father, who

wished to instruct himself as well as to help his son, helped him with

his home preparation. During holidays, the boy enjoyed his liberty. Some

of his schoolfellows--Vercel, Charrière, Guillemin, Coulon--called for

him to come out with them and he followed them with pleasure. He

delighted in fishing parties on the Cuisance, and much admired the net

throwing of his comrade Jules Vercel. But he avoided bird trapping; the

sight of a wounded lark was painful to him.

The doors of Louis Pasteur’s home were not usually open except to his

schoolboy friends, who, when they did not fetch him away, used to come

and play in the tannery yard with remnants of bark, stray bits of iron,

etc. Joseph Pasteur, though not considered a proud man, did not easily

make friends. His language and manners were not those of a retired

sergeant; he never spoke of his campaigns and never entered a café. On

Sundays, wearing a military-looking frock coat, spotlessly clean and

adorned with the showy ribbon of the Legion of Honour (worn very large

at that time), he invariably walked out towards the road from Arbois to

Besançon. This road passes between vine-planted hills. On the left, on a

wooded height above the wide plain towards Dôle, the ruins of the Vadans

tower invest the whole landscape with a lingering glamour of heroic

times. In these solitary meditations, he dwelt more anxiously on the

future than on present difficulties, the latter being of little account

in this hard-working family. What would become of this son of his,

conscientious and studious, but, though already thirteen years old, with

no apparent preference for anything but drawing? The epithet of _artist_

given to Louis Pasteur by his Arboisian friends only half pleased the

paternal vanity. And yet it is impossible not to be struck by the

realism of his first original effort, a very bold pastel drawing. This

pastel represents Louis’ mother, one morning that she was going to

market, with a white cap and a blue and green tartan shawl. Her son

insisted on painting her just as she was. The portrait is full of

sincerity and not unlike the work of a conscientious pre-Raphaelite. The

powerful face is illumined by a pair of clear straightforward eyes.

Though they did not entertain mere acquaintances, the husband and wife

were happy to receive those who seemed to them worthy of affection or

esteem by reason of some superiority of the mind or of the heart. In

this way they formed a friendship with an old army doctor then

practising in the Arbois hospital, Dr. Dumont, a man who studied for the

sake of learning and who did a great deal of good while avoiding

popularity.

Another familiar friend was a philosopher named Bousson de Mairet. An

indefatigable reader, he never went out without a book or pamphlet in

his pocket. He spent his life in compiling from isolated facts annals in

which the characteristics of the Francs-Comtois, and especially the

Arboisians, were reproduced in detail, with labour worthy of a

Benedictine monk. He often came to spend a quiet evening with the

Pasteur family, who used to question him and to listen to his

interesting records of that strange Arboisian race, difficult to

understand, presenting as it does a mixture of heroic courage and that

slightly ironical good humour which Parisians and Southerners mistake

for naïveness. Arboisians never distrust themselves, but are sceptical

where others are concerned. They are proud of their local history, and

even of their rodomontades.

For instance, on August 4, 1830, they sent an address to the Parisians

to express their indignation against the “Ordonnances”[2] and to assure

them that all the available population of Arbois was ready to fly to the

assistance of Paris. In April, 1834, a lawyer’s clerk, passing one

evening through Arbois by the coach, announced to a few _gardes

nationaux_ who were standing about that the Republic was proclaimed at

Lyons. Arbois immediately rose in arms; the insurgents armed themselves

with guns from the Hôtel de Ville. Louis Pasteur watched the arrival

from Besançon of 200 grenadiers, four squadrons of light cavalry, and a

small battery of artillery sent to reduce the rebels. The _sous-préfet_

of Poligny having asked the rioters who were their leaders, they

answered with one voice, “We are all leaders.” A few days later the

great, the good news was published in all the newspapers: “Arbois,

Lyons, and Paris are pacified.” The Arboisians called their neighbours

“the Braggarts of Salins,” probably with the ingenious intention of

turning such a well-deserved accusation from themselves.

Louis Pasteur, whose mind already had a serious bent, preferred to these

recent anecdotes such historical records as that of the siege of Arbois

under Henry IV, when the Arboisians held out for three whole days

against a besieging army of 25,000 men. His childish imagination, after

being worked upon by these stories of local patriotism, eagerly seized

upon ideals of a higher patriotism, and fed upon the glory of the French

people as represented by the conquests of the Empire.

He watched his parents, day by day working under dire necessity and

ennobling their weary task by considering their children’s education

almost as essential as their daily bread; and, as in all things the

father and mother took an interest in noble motives and principles,

their material life was lightened and illumined by their moral life.

One more friend, the headmaster of Arbois college, M. Romanet, exerted a

decisive influence on Louis Pasteur’s career. This master, who was

constantly trying to elevate the mind and heart of his pupils, inspired

Louis with great admiration as well as with respect and gratitude.

Romanet considered that whilst instruction doubled a man’s value,

education, in the highest sense of the word, increased it tenfold. He

was the first to discover in Louis Pasteur the hidden spark that had not

yet revealed itself by any brilliant success in the hardworking

schoolboy. Louis’ mind worked so carefully that he was considered slow;

he never affirmed anything of which he was not absolutely sure; but with

all his strength and caution he also had vivid imaginative faculties.

Romanet, during their strolls round the college playground, took

pleasure in awakening with an educator’s interest the leading qualities

of this young nature--circumspection and enthusiasm. The boy, who had

been sitting over his desk with all-absorbing attention, now listened

with sparkling eyes to the kind teacher talking to him of his future and

opening to him the prospect of the great _Ecole Normale_.[3]

An officer of the Paris municipal guard, Captain Barbier, who always

came to Arbois when on leave, offered to look after Louis Pasteur if he

were sent to Paris. But Joseph Pasteur--in spite of all--hesitated to

send his son, not yet sixteen years old, a hundred leagues away from

home. Would it not be wiser to let him go to Besançon college and come

back to Arbois college as professor? What could be more desirable than

such a position? Surely Paris and the Ecole Normale were quite

unnecessary! The question of money also had to be considered.

“That need not trouble you,” said Captain Barbier. “In the Latin

Quarter, Impasse des Feuillantines, there is a preparatory school, of

which the headmaster, M. Barbet, is a Franc-Comtois. He will do for your

son what he has done for many boys from his own country--that is, take

him at reduced school fees.”

Joseph Pasteur at last allowed himself to be persuaded, and Louis’

departure was fixed for the end of October, 1838. He was not going

alone: Jules Vercel, his dear school friend, was also going to Paris to

work for his “baccalauréat.”[4] This youth had a most happy temperament:

unambitious, satisfied with each day’s work as it came, he took pride

and pleasure in the success of others, and especially in that of

“Louis,” as he then and always fraternally called his friend. The two

boys’ friendship went some way to alleviate the natural anxieties felt

by both families. The slowness and difficulty of travelling in those

days gave to farewells a sort of solemn sadness; they were repeated

twenty times whilst the horses were being harnessed and the luggage

hoisted on to the coach in the large courtyard of the “Hôtel de la

Poste.” On that bleak October morning, amidst a shower of rain and

sleet, the two lads had to sit under the tarpaulin behind the driver;

there were no seats left inside or under the hood. In spite of Vercel’s

habit of seeing the right side of things and his joy in thinking that in

forty-eight hours he, the country boy, would see the wonders of

Paris--in spite of Pasteur’s brave resolve to make the most of his

unexpected opportunities of study, of the now possible entrance into the

“Ecole Normale”--both looked with heavy hearts at the familiar scene

they were leaving behind them--their homes, the square tower of Arbois

church, the heights of the Ermitage in the grey distance.

Every native of Jura, though he affects to feel nothing of the kind,

has, at the bottom of his heart, a strong feeling of attachment for the

corner of the world where he has spent his childhood; as soon as he

forsakes his native soil his thoughts return to it with a painful and

persistent charm. The two boys did not take much interest in the towns

where the coach stopped to change horses, Dôle, Dijon, Auxerre, Joigny,

Sens, Fontainebleau, etc.

When Louis Pasteur reached Paris he did not feel like Balzac’s student

hero, confidently defying the great city. In spite of the strong will

already visible in his pensive features, his grief was too deep to be

reasoned away. No one at first suspected this; he was a reserved youth,

with none of the desire to talk which leads weak natures to ease their

sorrows by pouring them out; but, when all was quiet in the Impasse des

Feuillantines and his sleeping comrades could not break in upon his

regrets, he would lie awake for hours thinking of his home and repeating

the mournful line--

How endless unto watchful anguish

Night doth seem.

The students of the Barbet school attended the classes of the Lycée St.

Louis. In spite of his willingness and his passionate love of study,

Louis was overcome with despair at being away from home. Never was

homesickness more acute. “If I could only get a whiff of the tannery

yard,” he would say to Jules Vercel, “I feel I should be cured.” M.

Barbet endeavoured in vain to amuse and turn the thoughts of this lad of

fifteen so absorbed in his sorrow. At last he thought it his duty to

warn the parents of this state of mind, which threatened to become

morbid.

One morning in November Louis Pasteur was told with an air of mystery

that he was wanted. “They are waiting for you close by,” said the

messenger, indicating a small café at the corner of the street. Louis

entered and found a man sitting at a small table at the back of the

shop, his face in his hands. It was his father. “I have come to fetch

you,” he said simply. No explanations were necessary; the father and son

understood each other’s longings.

What took place in Pasteur’s mind when he found himself again at Arbois?

After the first few days of relief and joy, did he feel, when he went

back to Arbois college, any regret, not to say remorse, at not having

overcome his homesickness? Was he discouraged by the prospect of a

restricted career in that small town? Little is known of that period

when his will had been mastered by his feelings; but from the indecision

of his daily life we may hazard a guess at the disquieted state of his

mind at this time. At the beginning of that year (1839) he returned for

a time to his early tastes; he went back to his coloured chalks, left

aside for the last eighteen months, ever since one holiday time when he

had drawn Captain Barbier, proudly wearing his uniform, and with the

high colour of excellent health.

He soon got beyond the powers of his drawing master, M. Pointurier, a

good man who does not seem to have seen any scientific possibilities in

the art of drawing.

Louis’ pastel drawings soon formed a portrait gallery of friends. An old

cooper of seventy, Father Gaidot, born at Dôle, but now living at

Arbois, had his turn. Gaidot appears in a festive costume, a blue coat

and a yellow waistcoat, very picturesque with his wrinkled forehead and

close-shaven cheeks. Then there are all the members of a family named

Roch. The father and the son are drawn carefully, portraits such as are

often seen in country villages; but the two daughters Lydia and Sophia

are more delicately pencilled; they live again in the youthful grace of

their twenty summers. Then we have a notary, the wide collar of a frock

coat framing his rubicund face; a young woman in white; an old nun of

eighty-two in a fluted cap, wearing a white hood and an ivory cross; a

little boy of ten in a velvet suit, a melancholy-looking child, not

destined to grow to manhood. Pasteur obligingly drew any one who wished

to have a portrait. Among all these pastels, two are really remarkable.

The first represents, in his official garb, a M. Blondeau, registrar of

mortgages, whose gentle and refined features are perfectly delineated.

The other is the portrait of a mayor of Arbois, M. Pareau; he wears his

silver-embroidered uniform, with a white stock. The cross of the Legion

of Honour and the tricolour scarf are discreetly indicated. The whole

interest is centred in the smiling face, with hair brushed up _à la_

Louis Philippe, and blue eyes harmonizing with a blue ground.

The compliments of this local dignitary and Romanet’s renewed counsels

at the end of the year--when Pasteur took more school prizes than he

could carry--reawakened within him the ambition for the Ecole Normale.

There was no “philosophy”[5] class in the college of Arbois, and a

return to Paris seemed formidable. Pasteur resolved to go to the college

at Besançon, where he could go on with his studies, pass his

baccalauréat and then prepare for the examinations of the Ecole Normale.

Besançon is only forty kilometres from Arbois, and Joseph Pasteur was in

the habit of going there several times a year to sell some of his

prepared skins. This was by far the wisest solution of the problem.

On his arrival at the Royal College of Franche Comté Pasteur found

himself under a philosophy master, M. Daunas, who had been a student at

the Ecole Normale and was a graduate of the University; he was young,

full of eloquence, proud of his pupils, of awakening their faculties and

directing their minds. The science master, M. Darlay, did not inspire

the same enthusiasm; he was an elderly man and regretted the good old

times when pupils were less inquisitive. Pasteur’s questions often

embarrassed him. Louis’ reputation as a painter satisfied him no longer,

though the portrait he drew of one of his comrades was exhibited. “All

this does not lead to the Ecole Normale,” he wrote to his parents in

January, 1840. “I prefer a first place at college to 10,000 praises in

the course of conversation.... We shall meet on Sunday, dear father, for

I believe there is a fair on Monday. If we see M. Daunas, we will speak

to him of the Ecole Normale. Dear sisters, let me tell you again, work

hard, love each other. When one is accustomed to work it is impossible

to do without it; besides, everything in this world depends on that.

Armed with science, one can rise above all one’s fellows.... But I hope

all this good advice to you is superfluous, and I am sure you spend many

moments every day learning your grammar. Love each other as I love you,

while awaiting the happy day when I shall be received at the Ecole

Normale.” Thus was his whole life filled with tenderness as well as with

work. He took the degree of “bachelier ès lettres” on August 29, 1840.

The three examiners, doctors “ès lettres,” put down his answers as “good

in Greek on Plutarch and in Latin on Virgil, good also in rhetoric,

medicine, history and geography, good in philosophy, very good in

elementary science, good in French composition.”

At the end of the summer holidays the headmaster of the Royal College of

Besançon, M. Répécaud, sent for him and offered him the post of

preparation master. Certain administrative changes and an increased

number of pupils were the reason of this offer, which proved the

master’s esteem for Pasteur’s moral qualities, his first degree not

having been obtained with any particular brilliancy.

The youthful master was to be remunerated from the month of January,

1841. A student in the class of special mathematics, he was his

comrades’ mentor during preparation time. They obeyed him without

difficulty; simple and yet serious-minded, his sense of individual

dignity made authority easy to him. Ever thoughtful of his distant home,

he strengthened the influence of the father and mother in the education

of his sisters, who had not so great a love of industry as he had. On

November 1, 1840--he was not eighteen yet--pleased to hear that they

were making some progress, he wrote the following, which, though

slightly pedantic, reveals the warmth of his feelings--“My dear parents,

my sisters, when I received at the same time the two letters that you

sent me I thought that something extraordinary had happened, but such

was not the case. The second letter you wrote me gave me much pleasure;

it tells me that--perhaps for the first time--my sisters have _willed_.

To _will_ is a great thing, dear sisters, for Action and Work usually

follow Will, and almost always Work is accompanied by success. These

three things, Will, Work, Success, fill human existence. Will opens the

door to success both brilliant and happy; Work passes these doors, and

at the end of the journey Success comes to crown one’s efforts. And so,

my dear sisters, if your resolution is firm, your task, be it what it

may, is already begun; you have but to walk forward, it will achieve

itself. If perchance you should falter during the journey, a hand would

be there to support you. If that should be wanting, God, who alone could

take that hand from you, would Himself accomplish its work.... May my

words be felt and understood by you, dearest sisters. I impress them on

your hearts. May they be your guide. Farewell. Your brother.”

The letters he wrote, the books he loved, the friends he chose, bear

witness to the character of Pasteur in those days of early youth. As he

now felt, after the discouraging trial he had gone through in Paris,

that the development of the will should hold the first place in

education, he applied all his efforts to the bringing out of this

leading force. He was already grave and exceptionally matured; he saw in

the perfecting of self the great law of man, and nothing that could

assist in that improvement seemed to him without importance. Books read

in early life appeared to him to have an almost decisive influence. In

his eyes a good book was a good action constantly renewed, a bad one an

incessant and irreparable fault.

There lived at that time in Franche Comté an elderly writer, whom Sainte

Beuve considered as the ideal of the upright man and of the man of

letters. His name was Joseph Droz, and his moral doctrine was that

vanity is the cause of many wrecked and aimless lives, that moderation

is a form of wisdom and an element of happiness, and that most men

sadden and trouble their lives by causeless worry and agitation. His own

life was an example of his precepts of kindliness and patience, and was

filled to the utmost with all the good that a pure literary conscience

can bestow; he was all benevolence and cordiality. It seemed natural

that he should publish one after another numberless editions of his

_Essay on the Art of being Happy_.

“I have still,” wrote Pasteur to his parents, “that little volume of M.

Droz which he was kind enough to lend me. I have never read anything

wiser, more moral or more virtuous. I have also another of his works;

nothing was ever better written. At the end of the year I shall bring

you back these books. One feels in reading them an irresistible charm

which penetrates the soul and fills it with the most exalted and

generous feelings. There is not a word of exaggeration in what I am

writing. Indeed I take his books with me to the services on Sundays to

read them, and I believe that in so acting, in spite of all that

thoughtless bigotry might say, I am conforming to the very highest

religious ideas.”

Those ideas Droz might have summarized simply by Christ’s words, “Love

ye one another.” But this was a time of circumlocution. Young people

demanded of books, of discourses, of poetry, a sonorous echo of their

own secret feelings. In the writings of the Besançon moralist, Pasteur

saw a religion such as he himself dreamed of, a religion free from all

controversy and all intolerance, a religion of peace, love and devotion.

A little later, Silvio Pellico’s _Miei Prigioni_ developed in him an

emotion which answered to his instinctive sympathy for the sorrows of

others. He wrote advising his sisters to read “that interesting work,

where you breathe with every page a religious perfume which exalts and

ennobles the soul.” In reading _Miei Prigioni_ his sisters would light

upon a passage on fraternal love and all the deep feelings which it

represents.

“For my sisters,” he wrote in another letter, “I bought, a few days ago,

a very pretty book; I mean by very pretty something very interesting. It

is a little volume which took the Montyon[6] prize a few years ago, and

it is called, _Picciola_. How could it have deserved the Montyon

prize,” he added, with an edifying respect for the decisions of the

Academy, “if the reading of it were not of great value?”

“You know,” he announced to his parents when his appointment was

definitely settled, “that a supplementary master has board and lodging

and 300 francs a year!” This sum appeared to him enormous. He added, on

January 20: “At the end of this month money will already be owing to me;

and yet I assure you I am not really worth it.”

Pleased with this situation, though such a modest one, full of eagerness

to work, he wrote in the same letter: “I find it an excellent thing to

have a room of my own; I have more time to myself, and I am not

interrupted by those endless little things that the boys have to do, and

which take up a good deal of time. Indeed I am already noticing a change

in my work; difficulties are getting smoothed away because I have more

time to give to overcoming them; in fact I am beginning to hope that by

working as I do and shall continue to do I may be received with a good

rank at the Ecole. But do not think that I am overworking myself at all;

I take every recreation necessary to my health.”

Besides his ordinary work, he had been entrusted with the duty of giving

some help in mathematics and physical science to the youths who were

reading for their baccalauréat.

As if reproaching himself with being the only member of the family who

enjoyed the opportunity of learning, he offered to pay for the schooling

of his youngest sister Josephine in a girls’ college at

Lons-le-Saulnier. He wrote, “I could easily do it by giving private

lessons. I have already refused to give some to several boys at 20 or 25

fr. a month. I refused because I have not too much time to give to my

work.” But he was quite disposed to waive this motive in deference to

superior judgment. His parents promised to think over this fraternal

wish, without however accepting his generous suggestion, offering even

to supplement his small salary of 24 francs a month by a little

allowance, in case he wished for a few private lessons to prepare

himself more thoroughly for the Ecole Normale. They quite recognized his

right to advise; and--as he thought that his sister should prepare

herself beforehand for the class she was to enter--he wrote to his

mother with filial authority, “Josephine should work a good deal until

the end of the year, and I would recommend to Mother that she should not

continually be sent out on errands; she must have time to work.”

Michelet, in his recollections, tells of his hours of intimacy with a

college friend named Poinsat, and thus expresses himself: “It was an

immense, an insatiable longing for confidences, for mutual revelations.”

Pasteur felt something of the sort for Charles Chappuis, a _philosophie_

student at Besançon college. He was the son of a notary at St. Vit, one

of those old-fashioned provincial notaries, who, by the dignity of their

lives, their spirit of wisdom, the perpetual preoccupation of their

duty, inspired their children with a sense of responsibility. His son

had even surpassed his father’s hopes. Of this generous, gentle-faced

youth there exists a lithograph signed “Louis Pasteur.” A book entitled

_Les Graveurs du XIXᵐᵉ Siècle_ mentions this portrait, giving Pasteur an

unexpected form of celebrity. Before the _Graveurs_, the _Guide de

l’Amateur des Œuvres d’Art_ had already spoken of a pastel drawing

discovered in the United States near Boston. It represents another

schoolfellow of Pasteur’s, who, far from his native land, carefully

preserved the portrait of Chappuis as well as his own. Everything that

friendship can give in strength and disinterestedness, everything that,

according to Montaigne--who knew more about it even that

Michelet--“makes souls merge into each other so that the seam which

originally joined them disappears,” was experienced by Pasteur

and Chappuis. Filial piety, brotherly solicitude, friendly

confidences--Pasteur knew the sweetness of all these early human joys;

the whole of his life was permeated with them. The books he loved added

to this flow of generous emotions. Chappuis watched and admired this

original nature, which, with a rigid mind made for scientific research

and always seeking the proof of everything, yet read Lamartine’s

_Meditations_ with enthusiasm. Differing in this from many science

students, who are indifferent to literature--just as some literature

students affect to disdain science--Pasteur kept for literature a place

apart. He looked upon it as a guide for general ideas. Sometimes he

would praise to excess some writer or orator merely because he had found

in one page or in one sentence the expression of an exalted sentiment.

It was with Chappuis that he exchanged his thoughts, and together they

mapped out a life in common. When Chappuis went to Paris, the better to

prepare himself for the Ecole Normale, Pasteur felt an ardent desire to

go with him. Chappuis wrote to him with that open spontaneity which is

such a charm in youth, “I shall feel as if I had all my Franche Comté

with me when you are here.” Pasteur’s father feared a crisis like that

of 1838, and, after hesitating, refused his consent to an immediate

departure. “Next year,” he said.

In October, 1841, though still combining the functions of master and

student, Pasteur resumed his attendance of the classes for special

mathematics. But he was constantly thinking of Paris, “Paris, where

study is deeper.” One of Chappuis’ comrades, Bertin, whom Pasteur had

met during the holidays, had just entered the Ecole Normale at the head

of the list after attending in Paris a class of special mathematics.

“If I do not pass this year,” Pasteur wrote to his father on November 7,

“I think I should do well to go to Paris for a year. But there is time

to think of that and of the means of doing so without spending too much,

if the occasion should arise. I see now what great advantage there is in

giving two years to mathematics; everything becomes clearer and easier.

Of all our class students who tried this year for the Ecole

Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale, not a single one has passed, not

even the best of them, a student who had already done one year’s

mathematics at Lyons. The master we have now is very good. I feel sure I

shall do a great deal this year.”

He was twice second in his class; once he was first in physics. “That

gives me hope for later on,” he said. He wrote about another

mathematical competition, “If I get a good place it will be well

deserved, for this work has given me a pretty bad headache; I always do

get one, though, whenever we have a competition.” Then, fearful of

alarming his parents, he hastily adds, “But those headaches never last

long, and it is only an hour and a half since we left off.”

Anxious to stifle by hard work his growing regrets at not having

followed Chappuis to Paris, Pasteur imagined that he might prepare

himself for the Ecole Polytechnique as well as for the Ecole Normale.

One of his masters, M. Bouché, had led him to hope that he might be

successful. “I shall try this year for both schools,” Pasteur wrote to

his friend (January 22, 1842). “I do not know whether I am right in

deciding to do so. One thing tells me that I am wrong: it is the idea

that we might thus be parted; and when I think of that, I firmly believe

that I cannot possibly be admitted this year into the Ecole

Polytechnique. I feel quite superstitious about it. I have but one

pleasure, your letters and those from my family. Oh! do write often,

very long letters!”

Chappuis, concerned at this sudden resolve, answered in terms that did

credit to his heart and youthful wisdom. “Consult your tastes, think of

the present, of the future. You must think of yourself; it is your own

fate that you have to direct. There is more glitter on the one side; on

the other the gentle quiet life of a professor, a trifle monotonous

perhaps, but full of charm for him who knows how to enjoy it. You too

appreciated it formerly, and I learned to do so when we thought we

should both go the same way. Anyhow, go where you think you will be

happy, and think of me sometimes. I hope your father will not blame me.

I believe he looks upon me as your evil genius. These last holidays I

wanted you to come to me, then I advised you to go to Paris; each time

your father created some obstacle! But do what he wishes, and never

forget that it is perhaps because he loves you too much that he never

does what you ask him.”

Pasteur soon thought no more of his Polytechnic fancy, and gave himself

up altogether to his preparation for the Ecole Normale. But the study of

mathematics seemed to him dry and exhausting. He wrote in April, “One

ends by having nothing but figures, formulas and geometrical forms

before one’s eyes.... On Thursday I went out and I read a charming

story, which, much to my astonishment, made me weep. I had not done such

a thing for years. Such is life.”

On August 13, 1842, he went up for his examination (_baccalauréat ès

sciences_) before the Dijon Faculty. He passed less brilliantly even

than he had done for the _baccalauréat ès lettres_. In chemistry he was

only put down as “_médiocre_.” On August 26 he was declared admissible

to the examinations for the Ecole Normale. But he was only fifteenth out

of twenty-two candidates. He considered this too low a place, and

resolved to try again the following year. In October, 1842, he started

for Paris with Chappuis. On the eve of his departure Louis drew a last

pastel, a portrait of his father. It is a powerful face, with

observation and meditation apparent in the eyes, strength and caution in

the mouth and chin.

Pasteur arrived at the Barbet Boarding School, no longer a forlorn lad,

but a tall student capable of teaching and engaged for that purpose. He

only paid one-third of the pupil’s fees, and in return had to give to

the younger pupils some instruction in mathematics every morning from

six to seven. His room was not in the school, but in the same Impasse

des Feuillantines; two pupils shared it with him.

“Do not be anxious about my health and work,” he wrote to his friends a

few days after his arrival. “I need hardly get up till 5.45; you see it

is not so very early.” He went on outlining the programme of his time.

“I shall spend my Thursdays in a neighbouring library with Chappuis, who

has four hours to himself on that day. On Sundays we shall walk and work

a little together; we hope to do some Philosophy on Sundays, perhaps too

on Thursdays; I shall also read some literary works. Surely you must see

that I am not homesick this time.”

Besides attending the classes of the Lycée St. Louis, he also went to

the Sorbonne[7] to hear the Professor, who, after taking Gay-Lussac’s

place in 1832, had for the last ten years delighted his audience by an

eloquence and talent which opened boundless horizons before every mind.

In a letter dated December 9, 1842, Pasteur wrote, “I attend at the

Sorbonne the lectures of M. Dumas, a celebrated chemist. You cannot

imagine what a crowd of people come to these lectures. The room is

immense, and always quite full. We have to be there half an hour before

the time to get a good place, as you would in a theatre; there is also a

great deal of applause; there are always six or seven hundred people.”

Under this rostrum, Pasteur became, in his own words, a “disciple” full

of the enthusiasm inspired by Dumas.

Happy in this industrious life, he wrote in response to an expression of

his parents’ provincial uneasiness as to the temptations of the Latin

Quarter. “When one wishes to keep straight, one can do so in this place

as well as in any other; it is those who have no strength of will that

succumb.”

He made himself so useful at Barbet’s that he was soon kept free of all

expense. But the expenses of his Parisian life are set out in a small

list made about that time. His father wished him to dine at the Palais

Royal on Thursdays and Sundays with Chappuis, and the price of each of

those dinners came to a little less than two francs. He had, still with

the inseparable Chappuis, gone four times to the theatre and once to the

opera. He had also hired a stove for his stone-floored room; for eight

francs he had bought some firewood, and also a two-franc cloth for his

table, which he said had holes in it, and was not convenient to write

on.

At the end of the school year, 1843, he took at the Lycée St. Louis two

“Accessits,”[8] and one first prize in physics, and at the “_Concours

Général_”[9] a sixth “Accessit” in physics. He was admitted fourth on

the list to the Ecole Normale. He then wrote from Arbois to M. Barbet,

telling him that on his half-holidays he would give some lessons at the

school of the Impasse des Feuillantines as a small token of his

gratitude for past kindness. “My dear Pasteur,” answered M. Barbet, “I

accept with pleasure the offer you have made me to give to my school

some of the leisure that you will have during your stay at the Ecole

Normale. It will indeed be a means of frequent and intimate intercourse

between us, in which we shall both find much advantage.”

Pasteur was in such a hurry to enter the Ecole Normale that he arrived

in Paris some days before the other students. He solicited permission to

come in as another might have begged permission to come out. He was

readily allowed to sleep in the empty dormitory. His first visit was to

M. Barbet. The Thursday half-holiday, usually from one to seven, was

now from one to eight. “There is nothing more simple,” he said, “than to

come regularly at six o’clock on Thursdays and give the schoolboys a

physical science class.”

“I am very pleased,” wrote his father, “that you are giving lessons at

M. Barbet’s. He has been so kind to us that I was anxious that you

should show him some gratitude; be therefore always most obliging

towards him. You should do so, not only for your own sake, but for

others; it will encourage him to show the same kindness to other

studious young men, whose future might depend upon it.”

Generosity, self-sacrifice, kindliness even to unknown strangers, cost

not the least effort to the father and son, but seemed to them the most

natural thing possible. Just as their little house at Arbois was

transformed by a ray of the ideal, the broken down walls of the old

Ecole Normale--then a sort of annexe of the Louis Le Grand college, and

looking, said Jules Simon, like an old hospital or barracks--reflected

within them the ideas and sentiments which inspire useful lives. Joseph

Pasteur wrote (Nov. 18, 1843): “The details you give me on the way your

work is directed please me very much; everything seems organized so as

to produce distinguished scholars. Honour be to those who founded this

School.” Only one thing troubled him, he mentioned it in every letter.

“You know how we worry about your health; you do work so immoderately.

Are you not injuring your eyesight by so much night work? Your ambition

ought to be satisfied now that you have reached your present position!”

He also wrote to Chappuis: “Do tell Louis not to work so much; it is not

good to strain one’s brain. That is not the way to succeed but to

compromise one’s health.” And with some little irony as to the

cogitations of Chappuis the philosopher: “Believe me, you are but poor

philosophers if you do not know that one can be happy even as a poor

professor in Arbois College.”

Another letter, December, 1843, to his son this time: “Tell Chappuis

that I have bottled some 1834 bought on purpose to drink the health of

the Ecole Normale during the next holidays. There is more wit in those

100 litres than in all the books on philosophy in the world; but, as to

mathematical formulæ, there are none, I believe. Mind you tell him that

we shall drink the first bottle with him. Remain two good friends.”

Pasteur’s letters during this first period at the Normale have been

lost, but his biography continues without a break, thanks to the letters

of his father. “Tell us always about your studies, about your doings at

Barbet’s. Do you still attend M. Pouillet’s lectures, or do you find

that one science hampers the other? I should think not; on the contrary,

one should be a help to the other.” This observation should be

interesting to a student of heredity; the idea casually mentioned by the

father was to receive a vivid demonstration in the life-work of the

son.