ON THE ROAD TO FAME 67 



same number, fell off to fifteen and to twelve. 

 The proof was decisive. 



But Pouchet, his bitterest opponent, having 

 repeated the same experiments, only with a 

 less degree of care, arrived at different results, 

 and denied the value of Pasteur's demonstra- 

 tions. He .also had obtained air from various 

 localities, even from Sicily, and there, just as 

 elsewhere, he had found it fertile, and ready to 

 act upon liquids capable of putrefying. The 

 conflict assumed epic proportions. The ses- 

 sions of the Academy of Sciences caught the 

 echoes of it, each theory having its partizans, 

 and each experimenter his enemies. Pasteur, 

 however, ended by convincing the learned as- 

 semblage, which in 1862 awarded him a prize 

 for his Memorandum on Organic Corpuscles 

 existing in the Atmosphere. Alone, or almost 

 alone, Pouchet, Joly and Musset refused to lay 

 down arms, and continued to carry on an active 

 war. In order to force them to surrender Pas- 

 teur requested the Academy of Sciences to 

 name a commission to judge between him and 



