16 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



metric substances in growing plants : he seemed 

 wholly extravagant in this phase of Pythagorean 

 thought. It lasted only a year or so " One must 

 be a bit mad," he said later, " to undertake what I 

 did." But the records of imagination in science are 

 full of dreams which come true : and it may be 

 that his vision of the disymmetry of life will some 

 day be interpreted. Meanwhile, the discovery of 

 the left-handed acid was bringing renown to him : 

 he was beginning to be known among men of 

 science in Paris : and the Government made him 

 Professor of Physics at Dijon. It was an appoint- 

 ment of no use to him : it took him from work of 

 thorough originality, and set him to commonplace 

 teaching. He did what he could : but he was 

 longing to get away : " I can do nothing, really, 

 here," he writes to Chappuis. " If I can't get the 

 appointment at Besancon, I'm coming back to 

 Paris." Happily, the appointment at Besancon, 

 whatever it was, fell through : and he was offered 

 the Professorship of Chemistry in Strasbourg. On 

 January 15, 1849, he went rejoicing to Strasbourg. 

 Friendship met him on the threshold, and Love was 

 waiting for him just across it. Friendship was 

 young M. Bertin, who had been at school with 

 him, and was now Professor of Physics in Stras- 

 bourg : Love was Marie Laurent, a daughter of the 

 Rector of the Academy. The Laurents' pure and 



