116 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



refers, in a London letter, to my speech at the Congress. What 

 an unexpected success I " 



ring heard that yellow fever had just been brought intc 

 the Gironde, at the Pauillac lazaretto by the vessel Conde from 

 Senegal, Pasteur immediately started for Bordeaux. He 

 hoped to find the microbe in the blood of the sick or the dead, 

 and to succeed in cultivating it. M. Eoux hastened to join his 

 master. 



If people spoke to Pasteur of the danger of infection, " What 

 does it matter?" he said. "Life in the midst of danger is 

 tlie life, the real life, the life of sacrifice, of example, of 

 fruitfulness." 



He was vexed to find his arrival notified in the newspapers ; 

 it worried him not to be able to work and to travel incognito. 



On September 17, he wrote to Mine. Pasteur: "... We 

 rowed out to a great transport ship which is lying in the 

 Pauillac roads, having just arrived. From our boat, we were 

 able to speak to the men of the crew. Their health is good, 

 but they lost seven persons at St. Louis, two passengers and 

 five men of the crew. Save the captain and one engineer, they 

 are all Senegalese negroes on that ship. We have been near 

 another large steamboat, and yet another; their health is 

 equally good. . . . 



" The most afflicted ship is the Conde, which is in quaran- 

 tine in the Pauillac roads, and near which we have not l> 

 able to go. She has lost eighteen persons, either at sea or at 

 the lazaretto. ..." 



No experiment could be attempted — the patients were con- 

 valescent. "But," he wrote the next day, "the Richelieu 

 will arrive between the 25th and 28th, I think with some 

 passengers. ... It is more than likely that there will have 

 been deaths during the passage, and patients for the lazaretto. 

 I am therefore awaiting the arrival of that ship with the hope 

 — God forgive a scientist's passion I ! — that I may atteinjn 

 6ome researches at the Pauillac lazaretto, where I will arrai 

 things in consequence. You may be sure I shall take 

 every precaution. In the meanwhile, what shall I do in 

 Bordeaux? 



" 1 have made the acquaintance of the young librarian of 

 the town library, which is a few doors from the Hotel 

 Richelieu, in the Avenues of Tourny. The library is opened 

 to me at all hours : 1 am there even now, alone and very com- 



