WOMEN AS INSPIRERS 377 



It was particularly during his long and arduous re- 

 searches on the disease of silkworms that Pasteur found his 

 wife's aid of incalculable value. For Mme. Pasteur and 

 her daughter then constituted themselves veritable silk- 

 worm rearers. They collected mulberry leaves, sorted 

 larvae, and were unremitting in their labors during the 

 continuance of this memorable investigation. And not 

 only in the silk-producing districts of Southern France 

 were they thus occupied, but also in a special laboratory in 

 Ecole Normale, after their return to Paris. 



And, when in the midst of these researches, on the suc- 

 cessful outcome of which hinged one of the greatest sources 

 of national wealth, the indefatigable savant was stricken 

 with paralysis and his life was for a while despaired of, it 

 was again his devoted helpmate that afforded him solace in 

 suffering and exercised a supervision over those experi- 

 ments which the great man was still conducting almost in 

 the presence of death. 



That Pasteur's life was prolonged for a quarter of a 

 century after the terrible attack of hemiplegia in 1868, 

 that he was able to unravel the deep mysteries of microbian 

 life, that he was able to make discoveries whose economical 

 value to France was, in the estimation of Professor Hux- 

 ley, more than sufficient to liquidate the immense indem- 

 nity of five billion francs exacted from his country by 

 Germany at the termination of the Franco-Prussian war, 

 that he was able, especially during these fruitful twenty- 

 five years, to render his "scientific life like a luminous 

 trail in the great night of the infinitely little in those 

 ultimate abysses of being where life is born, ' ' was, in great 

 measure, due to the unceasing care, the untiring vigilance 

 and the sympathetic collaboration of one of the most de- 

 voted of wives and most noble and whole-souled of women. 



What has been said of the influence and helpfulness of 

 Mme. Pasteur can be asserted with even greater truth of 

 Elizabeth Agassiz and of Caroline Herschel. For these 



