120 PASTEUR 



tunity to serve France. M. Grevy presented 

 himself in opposition at Lons-le-Saulnier, and 

 Pasteur received only 62 votes. He cherished 

 no grudge because of this defeat, but he de- 

 clared that his incursion into the domain of 

 politics had been a mistake, and he promptly 

 returned to his studies. 



He had, for that matter, quite enough to do 

 in defending his own scientific work, which had 

 been newly attacked just as he began to believe 

 that it had been definitely established. Bas- 

 tian, for instance, despite the convincing na- 

 ture of his experiments on spontaneous genera- 

 tion, disputed his results, and Pasteur, though 

 he might well have rested on his earlier la- 

 bours, repeated them, if possible with even 

 greater care, in order to be able to answer him. 

 This experimental method, this close scrutiny 

 of facts which formed the basis of all Pasteur's 

 discoveries, this constant anxiety to leave noth- 

 ing doubtful or unfinished, has lately been tes- 

 tified to by M. Denys Cochin, a member of the 

 Academic Franchise and a deputy, on the occa- 



