2 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



but we have the signatures of tlie affianced couple, Claude 

 Pasteur and Jeanne Belle, affixed to the record of the quaint 

 betrothal oath of the time. This Claude was in his turn a 

 miller at Lemuy, though at his death in 1746 he is only 

 mentioned as a labourer in the parish register. He had eight 

 children, the youngest, whose name was Claude Etienne, and 

 who was born in the village of Supt, a few kilometres from 

 Lemuy, being Louis Pasteur's great-grandfather. 



What ambition, what love of adventures induced him to 

 leave the Jura plains to come down to Salins? A desire for 

 independence in the literal sense of the word. According to 

 the custom then still in force in Franche Comte (in con- 

 tradiction to the name of that province, as Voltaire truly 

 remarks), there were yet some serfs, that is to say, people 

 legally incapable of disposing of their goods or of their persons. 

 They were part of the possessions of a nobleman or of the 

 lands of a convent or monastery. Denis Pasteur and his son 

 had been serfs of the Counts of Udressier. Claude Etienne 

 desired to be freed and succeeded in achieving this at the age 

 of thirty, as is proved by a deed, dated March 20, 1763, drawn 

 up in the presence of the Royal notary, Claude Jarry. Messire 

 Philippe-Marie-Francois, Count of Udressier, Lord of Ecleux, 

 Cramans, Lemuy and other places, consented **by special 

 grace'' to free Claude Etienne Pasteur, a tanner, of Salins, 

 his serf. The deed stipulated that Claude Etienne and his 

 unborn posterity should henceforth be enfranchised from the 

 stain of mortmain. Four gold pieces of twenty-four livres 

 were paid then and there in the mansion of the Count of 

 Udressier by the said Pasteur. 



The following year, he married Frangoise Lambert. After 

 setting up together a small tannery in the Faubourg Champ- 

 tave they enjoyed the fairy tale ideal of happiness: they had 

 ten children. The third, Jean Henri, through whom this 

 genealogy continues, was born in 1769. On June 25, 1779, 

 letters giving Claude Etienne Pasteur the freedom of the city 

 of Salins were delivered to him by the Town Council. 



Jean Henri Pasteur, in his twentieth year, went to 

 Besancon to seek his fortune as a tanner, but was not success- 

 ful. His wife, Gabrielle Jourdan, died at the age of twenty, 

 and he married again, but himself died at twenty-seven, 

 leaving one little son by his first marriage, Jean Joseph 

 Pa-^teur. born March 16, 1791. This child, who was to be 



