82 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



a well-merited rank, which, no princely will, no popular caprice 

 can give or take away, and which will remain yours as long 

 as you remain faithful to Science, which bestows it upon you." 



Guizot, to whom it fell to welcome Blot to the Academie, 

 rendered homage to his independence, to his worship of dis- 

 interested research, to his ready counsels. *'The events which 

 have overturned everything around you," he said, *'have never 

 turned the course of your free and firm judgment, or of your 

 peaceful labours." On that occasion the decline of Biot's life 

 seemed like a beautiful summer evening in the north, before 

 nightfall, when a soft light still envelops all things. No 

 disciple ever felt more emotion than Pasteur when participating 

 in that last joy of his aged master. In Regnault's laboratory, a 

 photograph had been taken of Biot seated with bent head and 

 a weary attitude, but with the old sparkle in his eyes. Biot 

 offered it to Pasteur, saying: **If you place this proof near a 

 portrait of your father, you will unite the pictures of two men 

 who have loved you very much in the same way." 



Pasteur, between two canvassing visits, gave himself the 

 pleasure of going to hear a young professor that every one was 

 then speaking of. *'I have just been to a lecture by Rigault, 

 at the College de France," he wrote on March 6, 1857. *'The 

 room is too small, it is a struggle to get in. I have come away 

 delighted; it is a splendid success for the Universite, there is 

 nothing to add, nothing to retrench. Fancy a professor in one 

 of the Paris lycees making such a debut at the College de 

 France!" 



Pasteur preferred Rigault to St. Marc Girardin. ''And 

 Rigault is only beginning!" But, under Rigault ^s elegance 

 and apparent ease, lurked perpetual constraint. One day that 

 St. Marc Girardin was congratulating him, *'Ah," said 

 Rigault, **you do not see the steel corsets that I wear when I 

 am speaking ! ' ' That comparison suited his delicate, ingenious, 

 slightly artificial mind, never unrestrained even in simple 

 conversation, at the same time conscientious and self-conscious. 

 He who had once written that **Life is a work of art to be 

 fashioned by a skilful hand if the faculties of the mind are to 

 be fully enjoyed," made the mistake of forcing his nature. He 

 died a few months after that lecture. 



Pasteur's enthusiastic lines about Rigault show the joy he felt 

 at the success of others. He did not understand envy, ill-will, 

 or jealousy, and was more than astonished, indeed amazed. 



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