2 PASTEUR 



Louis Pasteur was descended from one of 

 those ancient peasant families that were at- 

 tached for centuries to the land they tilled, and 

 who have given so many illustrious sons to 

 France. In the seventeenth century his ances- 

 tors were still serfs of the soil, in Franche- 

 Comte, and the first who arose from servitude 

 was Louis Pasteur's great-grandfather, Claude 

 Etienne, who, having abandoned the labour of 

 the fields, was in the middle of the eighteenth 

 century a tanner at Salins, and one of the bour- 

 geoisie of that town. He came of a race distin- 

 guished for serious-mindedness and aptitude 

 for toil, positive qualities which produced ar- 

 tizans solicitous of the good renown of their 

 calling, and gifts of imagination which urged 

 them on to raise themselves above their en- 

 vironment by a superior education. 



Louis Pasteur's father, Jean Joseph, an or- 

 phan from early childhood, was born to Jean 

 Henri, the third son of Claude Etienne, on the 

 16th of March, 1791, in the midst of the Revo- 

 lution. He was reared by his grandmother, .but 



