426 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



respite of a few hours, moments of calm which inspired Pasteur 

 with the vain hope that she might yet be saved. This delusion 

 was a short-lived one. After attending Bouley's funeral, his 

 heart full of sorrow, Pasteur spent the day by little Louise's 

 bedside, in her parents' rooms in the Rue Dauphine. He 

 could not tear himself away ; she herself, full of affection for 

 him, gasped out a desire that he should not go away, that he 

 should stay with her ! She felt for his hand between two 

 spasms. Pasteur shared the grief of the father and mother. 

 When all hope had to be abandoned : " I did so wish I could 

 have saved your little one ! " he said. And as he came down 

 the staircase, he burst into tears. 



He was obliged, a few days later, to preside at the reception 

 of Joseph Bertrand at the Academic Francaise ; his sad feelings 

 little in harmony with the occasion. He read in a mournful 

 and troubled voice the speech he had prepared during his 

 peaceful and happy holidays at Arbois. Henry Houssaye, 

 reporting on this ceremony in the Journal des Debats, wrote, 

 " M. Pasteur ended his speech amidst a torrent of applause, 

 he received a veritable ovation. He seemed unaccountably 

 moved. How can M. Pasteur, who has received every mark 

 of admiration, every supreme honour, whose name is conse- 

 crated by universal renown, still be touched by anything save 

 the discoveries of his powerful genius ? ' ' People did not realize 

 that Pasteur's thoughts were far away from himself and from 

 his brilliant discovery. He was thinking of Dumas, his master, 

 of Bouley, his faithful friend and colleague, and of the child 

 he had been unable to snatch from the jaws of death ; his mind 

 was not with the living, but with the dead. 



A telegram from New York having announced that four 

 children, bitten by rabid dogs, were starting for Paris, many 

 adversaries who had heard of Louise Pelletier's death were say- 

 ing triumphantly that, if those children's parents had known 

 of her fate, they would have spared them so long and useless a 

 journey. 



The four little Americans belonged to workmen's families 

 and were sent to Paris by means of a public subscription opened 

 in the columns of the New York Herald ; they were accompanied 

 by a doctor and by the mother of the youngest of them, a boy 

 only five years old. After the first inoculation, this little boy, 

 astonished at the insignificant prick, could not help saying, 

 "Is this all we have come such a long journey for?" The 



