162 LOUIS PASTEUR. 



of preparing more than very small quantities of 

 healthy eggs for his experiments; but events were 

 so ordered that the starting-point, which seemed to 

 be purely scientific, unfolded a method susceptible 

 of a widespread practical application. This process 

 of procuring sound eggs is now universally adopted. 

 In the Basses-Alpes, in Ardeche, in Gard, in the 

 Drome, and in other countries, may be met with 

 everywhere, at the time of the cultivation, workshops 

 where hundreds of women and young girls are occu- 

 pied, with a remarkable division of labour and under 

 the strictest supervision of skilful overseers, in pound- 

 ing the moths, in examining them microscopically, 

 and in sorting and classifying the little cloths upon 

 which the eggs are deposited. 



But if Pasteur had brought back wealth to ruined 

 countries, if he had returned to Paris happy in the 

 victory he had gained, he had also undergone such 

 fatigues, and had so overstrained himself in the use 

 of the microscope while absorbed in his daily and 

 varied experiments, that in October 1868 he was 

 struck with paralysis of one side. Seeing, as he 

 thought, death approaching, he dictated to his wife a 

 last note on the studies which he had so much at 

 heart. This note was communicated to the Academy 

 of Sciences eight days after this terrible trial. 



A soul like his, possessing so great a mastery over 



