172 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



tion of pupils imbued with his principles, and the rarer and 

 priceless blessing of a home life mingling with his laboratory 

 life. His wife and his daughter, a mere child, shared his serici- 

 culture labours ; they had become magnanarelles equal to the 

 most capable in Alais. Another privilege was the advocacy of 

 some champions quite unknown to him. Those who loved 

 science and who understood that it would now become, thanks 

 to Pasteur, an important factor in agricultural and sericicul- 

 tural matters hailed his achievements with joy. For instance, 

 a letter was published on July 8, 1869, in the Journal of Prac- 

 tical Agriculture by a cultivator who had obtained excellent 

 results by applying Pasteur's method ; the letter concluded as 

 follows : " We should be obliged, if, through the columns of 

 your paper, you would express to M. Pasteur our feelings of 

 gratitude for his laborious and valuable researches. We firmly 

 hope that he will one day reap the fruit of his arduous labours, 

 and be amply compensated for the passionate attacks of which 

 he is now the object." 



"Monsieur Pasteur," once said the Mayor of Alais, Dr. 

 Pages, " if what you are showing me becomes verified in 

 current practice, nothing can repay you for your work, but the 

 town of Alais will raise a golden statue to you." 



Marshal Vaillant began to take more and more interest in 

 this question, which was not darkened, in his eyes at least, 

 by the dust of polemics. The old soldier, always scrupulously 

 punctual at the meetings of the Institute and of the Imperial 

 and Central Society of Agriculture, had amused himself by 

 organizing a little silkworm nursery on the Pasteur system, in 

 his own study, in the very centre of Paris. These experi- 

 ments, in the Imperial palace might have reminded an erudite 

 reader of Olivier de Serres' Theatre d' Agriculture of the time 

 when the said Olivier de Serres planted mulberry trees in the 

 Tuileries gardens at Henry IV 's request, and when, according 

 to the old agricultural writer, a house was arranged at the end 

 of the gardens "accommodated with all things necessary as 

 well for the feeding of the worms as for the preparation of 

 silk." 



The Marshal, though calling himself the most modest of 

 sericicultors, had been able to appreciate the safety of a method 

 which produced the same results in Paris as at the Pont 

 Gisquet ; the octogenarian veteran dwelt with complacency on 

 the splendid condition of his silkworms in all their phases from 



