The Professor: Avignon 



notions of the insect he was to save from danger. 

 I was astounded; more, I was filled with wonder. 1 



The fact is indeed so extraordinary that 

 it may well appear incredible, but it receives 

 authentic confirmation from the wholly con- 

 cordant account of Duclaux, Pasteur's pupil 

 and historiographer, as well as from the hon- 

 esty of the naturalist, who is assuredly in- 

 capable of having invented the story for our 

 amusement. 



I still remember the day [says Duclaux] when 

 Pasteur, returning to the laboratory, said to me with 

 a touch of excitement in his voice: 



" Do you know what M. Dumas has just asked 

 of me? To go to the Midi, to study the silk-worm 

 disease." 



I don't know what I replied ; probably what he 

 himself replied to his illustrious master: Then 

 there is a silk-worm disease? There are provinces 

 that are being ruined by it? All this was happen- 

 ing so far from Paris, and we were so far from 

 Paris in the laboratory! . . . 



Pasteur hesitated. He was not a physiologist. 

 But Dumas' insistence, the attraction of the un- 

 known, and an inward voice urged him to accept. 

 So he left for the Midi; it was early in June 1865. 

 He was invested with an official mission which con- 

 fronted him with a plague that had to be conquered 



1 Souvenirs, ix., pp. 326-328. 



161 



