60 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



as candidate even if a place for a correspondent were vacant in 

 the Chemistry section. "Do you then believe," answered 

 Dumas with a vivacity very unlike his usual solemn calmness, 

 ' ' do you believe that we are insensible to the glory which your 

 work reflects on French chemistry, and on the Ecole from 

 whence you come? The very day I entered the Ministry, I 

 asked for the Cross l for you. I should have had in giving it to 

 you myself a satisfaction which you cannot conceive. I don't 

 know whence the delay and difficulty arise. But what I do 

 know is that you make my blood boil when you speak in your 

 letter of the necessity of leaving a free place in chemistry to 

 the men you mention, one or two excepted. . . . What opinion 

 have you then of our judgment? When there is a vacant 

 place, you shall be presented, supported and elected. It is a 

 question of justice and of the great interests of science : we 

 shall make them prevail. . . . When the day comes, there will 

 be means found to do what is required for the interests of 

 science, of which you are one of the firmest pillars, and one of 

 the most glorious hopes. Heartily yours." 



" My dear father," wrote Pasteur, sending his father a copy 

 of this letter, " I hope you will be proud of M. Dumas' letter. 

 It surprised me very much. I did not believe that my work 

 deserved such a splendid testimony, though I recognize its 

 great importance." 



Thus were associated in Pasteur the full consciousness of his 

 great mental power with an extreme ingenuousness. Instead 

 of the pride and egotism provoked, almost excusably, in so 

 many superior men by excessive strength, his character pre- 

 sented the noblest delicacy. 



Another arrangement occurred to Eegnault : that he himself 

 should accept the direction of the Sevres Manu factory, and 

 give up to Pasteur his professorship at the Ecole Polytechnique. 

 Others suggested that Pasteur should become chief lecturer at 

 the Ecole Normale. Rumours of these possibilities reached 

 Strasburg, but Pasteur's thoughts were otherwise absorbed. 

 He was concerned with the manner in which he could modify 

 the crystalline forms of certain substances which, though 

 optically active, did not at the first view present the hemihedral 

 character, and with the possibility of provoking the significant 

 faces by varying the nature of the dissolving agents. Biot was 



1 Of the Legion of Honour. 



