INTRODUCTION 13 



Sorbon (founder of the original hostel for poor students), 

 Richelieu, Descartes, Pascal, Rollin, and Lavoisier, is 

 the chief place for university functions. These six figures 

 epitomize the many-sided achievements of French intel- 

 lectual progress. Even Pascal alone embodies an excep- 

 tional range of activity; we find him again represented at 

 the base of the Tour St. Jacques, which he is said to 

 have ascended to repeat his experiments proving the 

 decrease in the pressure of the atmosphere with increasing 

 elevation. Each of these tempting names, which might 

 furnish a text for long discourse, must be passed by in 

 favor of one more recent, which for the student repre- 

 sents most truly the spirit of modern France. 



Memories of Louis Pasteur are best recalled in the 

 regions associated with his life and work. The broad 

 Avenue de Breteuil, coaxial with the Hotel des In- 

 valides, extends from the Tomb of Napoleon to the 

 Boulevard Pasteur. At the center of the Place Breteuil 

 stands the monument erected by France in Pasteur's 

 honor. When it is remembered that by popular vote 

 Pasteur was declared the greatest of Frenchmen, the 

 national significance of this monument will be appre- 

 ciated. 



Pasteur's later work was done in the Institut Pasteur, 

 which stands in the Rue Dutot, not far from the Boule- 

 vard Pasteur. Here also is his tomb. But the reader of 

 his biography by Vallery-Radot a book to which 

 every young investigator, in whatever field of science, 

 should go for inspiration and guidance will remember 

 with keenest pleasure those simple beginnings when 

 Pasteur, an obscure student from the little village of 

 Dole, embarked upon his career of discovery. He 

 was studying the crystals of racemic acid, intent only 

 on the advancement of knowledge, and with no thought 

 of practical ends, when he noticed a curious dissymmetry, 



