232 LOUIS PASTEUR 



prising Parisian newspaper as to who was the great- 

 est man whom France had produced. The great 

 Napoleon who probably would have been awarded 

 this distinction a generation before stood well down 

 the list. The first place was given to Louis Pasteur 

 whose discoveries have probably saved more lives 

 than Napoleon had destroyed. 



As Pasteur approached his seventieth birthday, 

 preparations were made for a fitting celebration. 

 Norway, Sweden, and Denmark took the initiative 

 in this movement, which was enthusiastically sup- 

 ported by the Academy of Sciences in France. The 

 meeting was held in the large theater of the Sor- 

 bonne on December 27, 1892, and was presided 

 over by the President of the Republic, Sadi Carnot. 

 On the platform were the Ambassadors from Eng- 

 land, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Belgium, 

 Holland, Sweden, Norway, and of Bavaria, and 

 also the chief officials of the French government. 

 There were representatives of the Academy of 

 Sciences, the Academy of Medicine, the Ecole 

 Normale, the Ecole Politechnique, the School of 

 Pharmacy and many other scientific societies in 

 France and in foreign countries. There were dele- 

 gations from many nations, consisting of their fore- 

 most men of science, — Lister, Burdon Sanderson, 



