214 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



the life and career of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), the 

 founder of bacteriology, stood intimately associated. 



He was born, at Dole, but the family a few years 

 later settled at Arbois. For three generations the 

 Pasteurs had been tanners in the Jura, and they 

 naturally adhered to that portion of the population 

 which hailed the Revolution as a deliverance. The 

 great-grandfather was the first freeman of Pasteur's 

 forbears, having purchased with money his emanci- 

 pation from serfdom. The father in 1811, at the age 

 of twenty, was one of Napoleon's conscripts, and in 

 1814 received from the Emperor, for valor and fidel- 

 ity, the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The direct- 

 ness and endurance of the influence of this trained 

 veteran on his gifted son a hundred fine incidents 

 attest. In 1848 year of revolt in the monarchies 

 of Europe the young scientist enrolled himself in 

 the National Guard, and, seeing one day in the Place 

 du Pantheon a structure inscribed with the words 

 autel de la patrie, he placed upon it all the humble 

 means one hundred and fifty francs then at his 

 disposal. 



It was in that same year that Pasteur put on 

 record his discovery of the nature of racemic acid, 

 his first great service to science, from which all his 

 other services were to proceed. As a boy he had at- 

 tended the college at Arbois where his teacher had in- 

 spired him with an ambition to enter the great Ecole 

 Normale. Before reaching that goal he took his bache- 

 lor's degree in science as well as in arts at the Bes- 

 ancon college. At Paris he came in contact with the 

 leaders of the scientific world Claude Bernard, 

 Balard, Dumas, Biot. 



