DECISIVE EXPERIMENTS. 165 



future labours, he entered into these thoughts and 

 appeared to add faith to their hopes. He finished by 

 sharing them. 



In January 1869, although it was still impossible 

 for him to drag himself about his room, he was so 

 much excited by the contradictions that his system of 

 culture had aroused that he wished to start again for 

 Alais. 'Aided by the method of artificial cultivation,' 

 he remarked, ' we shall soon annihilate these latest 

 oppositions. There is here both a scientific principle 

 and an element of national wealth.' 



His wish could not be opposed, but a terrible and 

 anxious journey it was ! At some leagues from Alais, 

 at a place called Saint Hippolyte-du-Fort, where the 

 earliest experiments were made, Pasteur stopped. He 

 installed himself we might rather say he encamped 

 with his family and his assistants, in a more than 

 humble lodging, one of those miserable, cold, paved 

 houses of the rural districts. Seated in his arm- 

 chair, Pasteur directed the experiments, and verified 

 the observations which he had made the year before. 

 Each of his predictions as to the destiny of the dif- 

 ferent groups of worms was fulfilled to the smallest 

 detail. In the following spring he left for Alais, 

 W 7 here he followed in all their phases, from the egg 

 up to the cocoon, the cultivations there undertaken, 

 and he had the happiness of proving once more the 

 certainty of his method. 



