30 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



that you are grateful to your masters." About that same time 

 the headmaster of Arbois College, M. Romanet, used to read 

 out to the older boys the letters, always full of gratitude, which 

 he received from Louis Pasteur. These letters reflected life 

 in Paris, such as Pasteur understood it a life of hard work 

 and exalted ambition. M. Romanet, in one of his replies, 

 asked him to become librarian in partibus for the college and 

 to choose and procure books on science and literature. The 

 headmaster also begged of the young man some lectures for 

 the rhetorique class during the holidays. "It would seem to 

 the boys like an echo of the Sorbonne lectures ! And you 

 would speak to us of our great scientific men," added M. 

 Romanet, " amongst whom we shall one day number him who 

 once was one of our best pupils and will ever remain one of 

 our best friends." 



A corresponding member of Arbois College, and retained as 

 vacation lecturer,, Pasteur now undertook a yet more special 

 task. He had often heard his father deplore his own lack of 

 instruction, and knew well the elder man's desire for know- 

 ledge. By a touching exchange of parts, the child to whom 

 his father had taught his alphabet now became his father's 

 teacher ; but with what respect and what delicacy did this filial 



/ master express himself ! "It is in order that you may be able 

 to help Josephine that I am sending you this work to do." He 

 took most seriously his task of tutor by correspondence ; the 

 papers he sent were not always easy. His father wrote (Jan. 

 2, 1845) "I have spent two days over a problem which I 

 afterwards found quite easy ; it is no trifle to learn a thing and 

 teach it directly afterwards." And a month later : " Josephine 

 does not care to rack her brains, she says ; however I promise 

 you that you will be pleased with her progress by the next 

 holidays." 

 The father would often sit up late at night over rules of 



, L grammar and mathematical problems, preparing answers to 

 send to his boy in Paris. 



Some Arboisians, quite forgotten now, imagined that they 

 would add lustre to the local history. General Baron Delort, 

 a peer of France, 1 aide de camp to Louis Philippe, Grand Cross 



1 Peers of France. A supreme Council formed originally of the First 

 Vassals of the Crown ; became in 1420 one of the Courts of Parliament. 

 In 1789 the Peerage was suppressed, but reinstated in 1814 by the 

 Restoration, when it again formed part of the Legislative Corps ; there 

 were then hereditary peers and life-peers. In 1831 the hereditary 



