130 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



Eaulin excused himself; he was then preparing, with his 

 accustomed slow conscientiousness, his doctor's thesis, a work 

 afterwards considered by competent judges to be a master- 

 piece. 



"I must console myself," wrote Pasteur, expressing his 

 regrets, " by thinking that you will complete your excellent 

 thesis." 



One of Eaulin's fellow students at the Ecole Normale, 

 M. Gernez, was now a professor at the College Louis le 

 Grand. His mind was eminently congenial to Pasteur's. 

 Duruy, then Minister of Public Instruction, was ever anxious 

 to smooth down all difficulties in the path of science : he gave 

 a long leave of absence to M. Gernez, in order that he might 

 take Eaulin's place. Another young Normalien, Maillot, 

 prepared to join the scientific party, much to his delight. The 

 three men left Paris at the beginning of February. They 

 began by spending a few days in an hotel at Alais, trying to 

 find a suitable house where they would set up their temporary 

 laboratory. After a week or two in a house within the town, 

 too far, to be convenient, from the restaurant where they 

 had their meals, Maillot discovered a lonely house at the foot 

 of the Mount of the Hermitage, a mountain once covered with 

 flourishing mulberry trees, but now abandoned, and growing 

 but a few olive trees. 



This house, at Pont Gisquet, not quite a mile from Alais, 

 was large enough to hold Pasteur, his family and his pupils; a 

 iratory was soon arranged in an empty orangery. 

 'Then began a period of intense work," writes M. Gernez. 

 "Pasteur undertook a great number of trials, which he him- 

 self followed in their minutest details ; he only required our 

 help over similar operations by which he tested his own. The 

 result was that above the fatigues of the day, easily borne by 

 us strong young men, he had to bear the additional burden 

 of special researches, importunate visitors, and an equally 



importunate correspondence, chiefly dealing out criticisms 



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• • • 



Madame Pasteur, who had been detained in Paris for her 

 children's education, set out for Alais with her two daughters. 

 Her mother being then on a visit to the rector of the Chambery 

 Academy, M. Zevort, she arranged to spend a day or two in 

 that town. But hardly had she arrived when her daughter 

 Cecile, then twelve years old, became ill with typhoid fever. 



