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 fran?ois 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 na?vely 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,{2} 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-fran?ois, 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 fran?oise 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 besan?on 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{3} 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{4} 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 besan?on 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{5} 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,{6} 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 d?le 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 d?le 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 d?le 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{7} 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 besan?on. this road passes between vine-planted hills. on the left, on a wooded height above the wide plain towards d?le, 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{8} 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 na?veness. 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 h?tel de ville. louis pasteur watched the{9} arrival from besan?on 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{10} 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 besan?on 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{11} 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 “h?tel 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, d?le, 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{12} 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 d?le, 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{13} 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 besan?on, where he could go on with his studies, pass his baccalauréat and then prepare for the examinations of the ecole normale. besan?on 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,{14} 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 besan?on, 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{15} 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{16} 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 besan?on 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.{17} 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;{18} 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 besan?on 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 xix?? siècle mentions this portrait, giving pasteur an unexpected form of celebrity. before the graveurs, the guide de l’amateur des ?uvres 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{19} 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{20} 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{21} 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.{22}” 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{23} 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 formul?, 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{24} 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.
