CHAPTER III 

 1850—1854 



From the very beginning Mme. Pasteur not only admitted, 

 but approved, that the laboratory should come before every- 

 thing else. She would willingly have adopted the typographic 

 custom of the Acad£mie des Sciences Reports, where the word 

 Science is always spelt with a capital S. It was indeed 

 impossible to live with her husband without sharing his joys, 

 anxieties and renewed hopes, as they appeared day by day 

 reflected in his admirable eyes — eyes of a rare grey-green colour 

 like the sparkle of a Ceylon gem. Before certain scientific 

 possibilities, the flame of enthusiasm shone in those deep eyes, 

 and the whole stern face was illumined. Between domestic 

 happiness and prospective researches, Pasteur's life was com- 

 plete. But this couple, who had now shared everything for 

 more than a year, was to suffer indirectly through the new 

 law on the liberty of teaching. 



Devised by some as an effort at compromise between the 

 Church and the University, considered by others as a scope for 

 competition against State education, the law of 1850 brought 

 into the Superior Council of Public Instruction four archbishops 

 or bishops, elected by their colleagues. In each Department 1 

 an Academy Council was instituted, and, in this parcelling 

 out of University jurisdiction, the right of presence was recog- 

 nized as belonging to the bishop or his delegate. But all these 

 advantages did not satisfy those who called themselves 

 Catholics before everything else. The rupture between Louis 

 Veuillot on one side and, on the other, Falloux and Montalem- 

 bert, the principal authors of this law, dates from that time. 



1 Dtpartements. The present divisions of French territory, number- 

 ing eighty-seven in all. Each department is administered by a prefet, 

 and subdivided into arrondissements, each of which has a sous-prefet. 

 [Trans.] 



