356 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



have done for me , you have done for all your pupils ; it is one 

 of the distinctive traits of your nature. Behind the individual, 

 you have always considered France and her greatness. 



" What shall I do henceforth? Until now, great praise had 

 inflamed my ardour, and only inspired me with the idea of 

 making myself worthy of it by renewed efforts ; but that which 

 you have just given me in the names of the Academic and of 

 the Scientific Societies is in truth beyond my courage." 



Pasteur, who for a year had been applauded by the crowd, 

 received on that June 25, 1882, the testimony which he rated 

 above every other : praise from his master. 



Whilst he recalled the beneficent influence which Dumas 

 had had over him, those who were sitting in his drawing-room 

 at the Ecole Normale were thinking that Dumas might have 

 evoked similar recollections with similar charm. He too had 

 known enthusiasms which had illumined his youth. In 1822, 

 the very year when Pasteur was born, Dumas, who was then 

 living in a student's attic at Geneva, received the visit of a 

 man about fifty, dressed Directoire fashion, in a light blue coat 

 with steel buttons, a white waistcoat and yellow breeches. It 

 was Alexander von Humboldt, who had wished, on his way 

 through Geneva, to see the young man who, though only 

 twenty -two years old, had just published, in collaboration with 

 Provost, treatises on blood and on urea. That visit, the long 

 conversations, or rather the monologues, of Humboldt had 

 inspired Dumas with the feelings of surprise, pride, gratitude 

 and devotion with which the first meeting with a great man 

 is wont to fill the heart of an enthusiastic youth. When Dumas 

 heard Humboldt speak of Laplace, Berthollet, Gay-Lussac, 

 Arago, Thenard, Cuvier, etc., and describe them as familiarly 

 accessible, instead of as the awe-inspiring personages he had 

 imagined, Dumas became possessed with the idea of going to 

 Paris, knowing those men, living near them and imbibing their 

 methods. " On the day when Humboldt left Geneva," Dumas 

 used to say, "the town for me became empty." It was thus 

 that Dumas' journey to Paris was decided on, and his dazzling 

 career of sixty years begun. 



He was now near the end of his scientific career, closing 

 peacefully like a beautiful summer evening, and he was happy 

 in the fame of his former pupil. As he left the Ecole Normale, 

 on that June afternoon, he passed under the windows of the 

 Laboratory, where a few young men, imbued with Pasteur's 



