126 PASTEUR 



service to which he belonged and the slightness of 

 the recognition which for many years he received 

 from the Government. 



In 1874 the French National Assembly voted 

 Pasteur, as some recognition of his work on seri- 

 culture, a pension of 12,000 francs a year; nine years 

 later this was increased to 25,000 francs, and it was 

 further agreed that the pension should be continued 

 to his wife and children. In 1881 he was nominated 

 to represent France at the International Medical 

 Congress, which met that year in London. The re- 

 ception accorded him when, with his host, Sir James 

 Paget, he mounted the platform in St. James's Hall, 

 overwhelmed him. ' C'est sans doute le prince de 

 Galles qui arrive,' he remarked to his host, never 

 dreaming that such acclamations could be meant for 

 him. The following year he succeeded to Littre's 

 fauteuil at the Academy. In 1888 the President of 

 the Repubhc opened the Pasteur Institute, which had 

 been erected and endowed by a public subscription 

 from all countries and from all classes ; and there in 

 1892 he received a distinguished collection of scientific 

 men, who had come from all parts of the world to 

 congratulate him on his seventieth birthday. 



Three years later his health began rapidly to fail. 

 Two strokes of paralysis followed one another at a 

 short interval, and on September 28, 1895, he died. 

 He lies buried in the Institute he loved so well. A 

 nobler monument, or one more worthy of him who 

 lies therein, has never been erected by man. The 

 benefits which his simple, strenuous, hard-working, 

 noble life conferred on humanity cannot be estimated. 

 They help us, however, to realize the truth of the old 

 Arabian proverb, 'The ink of science is more precious 

 than the blood of the martyrs.' 



M. Vallery-Radot has given what will probably 

 prove to be the definitive Life of Pasteur. He has 



