22 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



Under this rostrum, Pasteur became, in his own words, a 

 " disciple " full of the enthusiasm inspired by Dumas. 



Happy in this industrious life, he wrote in response to an 

 expression of his parents' provincial uneasiness as to the 

 temptations of the Latin Quarter. " When one wishes to keep 

 straight, one can do so in this place as well as in any other ; it 

 is those who have no strength of will that succumb." 



He made himself so useful at Barbet's that he was soon 

 kept free of all expense. But the expenses of his Parisian life 

 are set out in a small list made about that time. His father 

 wished him to dine at the Palais Royal on Thursdays and 

 Sundays with Chappuis, and the price of each of those dinners 

 came to a little less than two francs. He had, still with the 

 inseparable Chappuis, gone four times to the theatre and once 

 to the opera. He had also hired a stove for his stone-floored 

 room ; for eight francs he had bought some firewood, and also a 

 two-franc cloth for his table, which he said had holes in it, 

 and was not convenient to write on. 



At the end of the school year, 1843, he took at the Lycee 

 St. Louis two " Accessits," * and one first prize in physics, 

 and at the ' Concours General" 2 a sixth " Accessit " in 

 physics. He was admitted fourth on the list to the Ecole 

 Normale. He then wrote from Arbois to M. Barbet, telling 

 him that on his half-holidays he would give some lessons at 

 the school of the Impasse des Feuillantines as a small token 

 of his gratitude for past kindness. ' My dear Pasteur," 

 answered M. Barbet, "I accept with pleasure the offer you 

 have made me to give to my school some of the leisure that 

 you will have during your stay at the Ecole Normale. It will 

 indeed be a means of frequent and intimate intercourse 

 between us, in which we shall both find much advantage." 



Pasteur was in such a hurry to enter the Ecole Normale 

 that he arrived in Paris some days before the other students. 

 He solicited permission to come in as another might have 

 begged permission to come out. He was readily allowed to 

 sleep in the empty dormitory. His first visit was to M. Barbet. 

 The Thursday half-holiday, usually from one to seven, was 



1 Accessit. A distinction accorded in French schools to those who 

 hare come nearest to obtaining the prize in any given subject. [Trans.] 



3 Concours General. An open competition held every year at the Sor- 

 bonne between the ilite of the students of all the colleges in France, 

 from the highest classes down to the quatrieme. [Trans.] 



