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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    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 hâve no strength of will that succumb.” He made himself so useful at Barbet’s that he was soon kept free of ail 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 inséparable Chappuis, gone four times to the theatre and once to the opéra. He bad 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,”1 and one first prize in physics, and at the “ Concours Général ” 2 3 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 hâve made me to give to my school some of the leisure that you will hâve 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 corne in as another might hâve begged permission to corne 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 1 Accessit. A distinction accorded in French schools to those who hare corne nearest to obtaining the prize in any given subject. [Trans.] 3 Concours Général. An open compétition held every year at the Sor- bonne between the élite of the students of ail the colleges in France, from the highest classes down to the quatrième. [Trans.J
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