The life of Pasteur / tr. from the French by Mrs. R.L. Devonshire.

  • René Vallery-Radot
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Pasteur / tr. from the French by Mrs. R.L. Devonshire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR with all-absorbing attention, now listened with sparkling eyes to the kind teacher talking to him of his future and opening to kim the prospect of the great Ecole Normale.1 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 ail—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 corne back to Arbois college as professor? What could be more désirable than such a position? Surely Paris and the Ecole Normale were quite unnecessary 1 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 pre- paratory 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.”2 This youth had a most happy tempérament : 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 1 Ecole Normale Supérieure, under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, founded in 1808 by Napoléon I, with the object of training young professors. Candidates must (1) be older than eighteen and younger than twenty-one; (2) pass one written and one vivâ voce examination ; (3) be already in possession of their diploma as bachelier of science or of letters, according to the branch of studies which they wish to take up ; and (4) sign an engagement for ten years’ work in public instruction. The professors of the Ecole Normale take the title of Maître des Conférences. [Trans.] i Baccalauréat (low Latin bachalariatus), first degree taken in a French Faculty; the next is licence, and the next doctoratc. It is much more elementary than a bachelor’s degree in an English university. There are two baccalauréats : (1) the baccalauréat ès lettres required of candidates for the Faculties of Medicine and of Law, to the Ecole Normale Supérieure and to several public offices; (2) the baccalauréat es sciences, required for admission to the Schools of Medicine and of Phar- macy, to the Ecole Normale Supérieure (scientific section), and the Polytechnic, Military and Foresters’ Schools. [Trans.]
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