1870—1872 179 



of a growing peril, a lingering hope in the military fortune of 

 France — everything conspired to give an incident, provoked 

 by Prussia, the proportions of a casus belli. But, in spite of 

 so many grievances, people did not yet believe in this sudden 

 return to barbarism. The Imperial policy had indeed been 

 blindly inconsistent; after opening a wide prospect of unity 

 before the German people it had been thought possible to say 

 **No further than the Main," as if the impetuous force of a 

 popular movement could be arrested after once being started. 

 France suddenly opened her eyes to her danger and to the 

 failure of her policy. But if a noble sentiment of generosity 

 had been mingled with the desire to increase her territory with- 

 out shedding a drop of blood, she had had the honour of being 

 in the vanguard of progress. Were great ideas of peace and 

 human brotherhood about to be engulfed in a war which would 

 throw Europe into an era of violence and brutality? 



Pasteur, profoundly saddened, could not bear to realize that 

 his ideal of the peaceful and beneficent destiny of France was 

 about to vanish; he left Strasburg — ^never to return to it — a 

 prey to the most sombre thoughts. 



When he returned to Paris, he met Sainte Claire Deville, 

 who had come back from a scientific mission in Germany, and 

 who had for the first time lost his brightness and optimism 

 The war appeared to him absolutely disastrous. He had seen 

 the Prussian army, redoubtable in its skilful organization^ 

 closing along the frontier; the invasion was certain, and there 

 was nothing to stay it. Everything was lacking in France, 

 even in arsenals like Strasburg. At Toul, on the second line of 

 fortifications, so little attention was paid to defence that the 

 Government had thought that the place could be used as a 

 depot for the infantry and cavalry reserves, who could await 

 there the order for crossing the Rhine. 



*'Ah! my lads, my poor lads!" said Sainte Claire Deville to 

 his Ecole Normale students, "it is all up with us!" And 

 he was seen, between two experiments, wiping his eyes with 

 the corner of his laboratory apron. 



The students, with the ordinary confidence of youth, could 

 not believe that an invasion should be so imminent. How- 

 ever, in spite of the privilege which frees Normaliens from any 

 military service in exchange for a ten years' engagement at 

 the University, they put patriotic duty above any future 

 University appointments, and entered the ranks as private 



