INTRODUCTION XI 



In 1859 Duclaux successfully passed entrance examina- 

 tions for both the Polytechnic School and the Normal 

 School, and M. Barbet had sufficient influence to cause 

 him to be sent to the latter. 



At the age of 19, therefore, Duclaux entered the Nor- 

 mal School and came under the teachings of Louis 

 Pasteur. The father, meanwhile, had died. Each anni- 

 versary of the father's death the young man went to 

 pass with his mother in Aurillac. But another bond had 

 sprung up an enthusiastic respect for the man of genius 

 who was now sub-director of scientific studies in the 

 Normal School. After Duclaux, father and son, it was 

 Pasteur and Duclaux. From the beginning Duclaux 

 ranged himself under his banner and experienced to the 

 depths an influence which modified his whole mind and 

 thought, as it was later to overturn all science. The 

 chemists of the Normal School of 1860 believed in Pasteur 

 as the romanticists of 1830 believed in Victor Hugo, and 

 these are the two great Gallic names of the 19th century. 

 Wlien Duclaux received his degree from the Normal 

 School in 1862 he entered the laboratory as assistant 

 to the master, assistant in a double sense, since the 

 authorities had not appointed any other assistant to 

 sweep up the dust or to wash the glassware. But as 

 Duclaux said later in his charming article on the labora- 

 tory of Pasteur which he contributed to the book on Le 

 Centenaire de VEcole norniale, "It is, moreover, a useful 

 apprenticeship for a young scientific man to keep things 

 clean. I will add, although it is perhaps a vanity to be 

 condemned, that I believe I have never had flasks as 

 meticulously cleaned as in that far off time when I 

 cleaned them myself." 



Madame Duclaux has drawn a very pleasing picture 

 of him as he was at this time : 



"I possess a photograph taken at this period which 



