CHAPTER I 



1822—1843 



The origin of even the humblest families can be traced 

 back by persevering search through the ancient parochial 

 registers. Thus the name of Pasteur is to be found written 

 at the beginning of the seventeenth century in the old registers 

 of the Priory of Mouthe, in the province of Franche Comt^. 

 The Pasteurs were tillers of the soil, and originally formed a 

 sort of tribe in the small village of Reculfoz, dependent on the 

 Priory, but they gradually dispersed over the country. 



The registers of Mieges, near Nozeroy, contain an entry 

 of the marriage of Denis Pasteur and Jeanne David, dated 

 February 9, 1682. This Denis, after whom the line of 

 Pasteur's ancestors follows in an unbroken record, lived in the 

 village of Pl^nisette, where his eldest son Claude was bom in 

 1683. Denis afterward sojourned for some time in the village 

 of Douay, and ultimately forsaking the valley of Mieges came 

 to Lemuy, where he worked as a miller for Claude Frangois 

 Count of Udressier, a noble descendant of a secretary of the 

 Emperor Charles V. 



Lemuy is surroimded by wide plains affording pasture for 

 herds of oxen. In the distance the pine trees of the forest of 

 Joux stand close together, like the ranks of an immense army, 

 their dark masses deepening the azure of the horizon. It was 

 in those widespreading open lands that Pasteur's ancestors lived. 

 Near the church, overshadowed by old beech and lime trees, a 

 tombstone is to be found overgrown with grass. Some 

 members of the family lie under that slab naively inscribed: 

 "Here lie, each by the side of the others . . ." 



In 1716, in the mill at Lemuy, ruins of which still exist, 

 the marriage contract of Claude Pasteur was drawn up and 

 signed in the presence of Henry Girod, Royal notary of Salins. 

 The father and mother declared themselves unable to write, 



1 



