While the ten dead sheep were being examined, two more died, and three more on the 19th. Bouley, informed by the veterinary surgeon, Boutet, of those successive incidents, wrote on the 20th to Pasteur: “My dear Master, Boutet has just informed me of the Chartres event. All has been accomplished according to the master’s words; your vaccinated sheep have triumphantly come through the trial, and all the others save one are dead. That result is of special importance in a country-side where incredulity was being maintained in spite of all the demonstrations made. It seems that the doctors especially were refractory. They said it was too good to be true, and they counted on the strength of the natural charbon to find your method in default. Now they are converted, Boutet writes, and the veterinary surgeon too—one amongst others, whose brain, it seems, was absolutely iron-clad—also the agricultors. There is a general Hosannah in your honour.”
After congratulating Pasteur on the Grand Cross, he added, “I was also very glad of the reward you have obtained for your two young collaborators, so full of your spirit, so devoted to your work and your person, and whose assistance is so self-sacrificing and disinterested. The Government has honoured itself by so happily crowning with that distinction the greatness of the discovery in which they took part.”
Henceforth, and for a time, systematic opposition ceased. Thousands and thousands of doses were used of the new vaccine, which afterwards saved millions to agriculture.
A few days later, came a change in Pasteur’s surroundings. He was invited by the Organizing Committee to attend the International Medical Congress in London, and desired by the Government of the Republic to represent France.
On August 3, when he arrived in St. James’ Hall, filled to overflowing, from the stalls to the topmost galleries, he was recognized by one of the stewards, who invited him to come to the platform reserved for the most illustrious members of the Congress. As he was going towards the platform, there was an outburst of applause, hurrahs and acclamations. Pasteur turned to his two companions, his son and his son-in-law, and said, with a little uneasiness: “It is no doubt the Prince of Wales arriving; I ought to have come sooner.”
“But it is you that they are all cheering,” said the President of the Congress, Sir James Paget, with his grave, kindly smile.
A few moments later, the Prince of Wales entered, accompanying his brother-in-law, the German Crown Prince.
In his speech, Sir James Paget said that medical science should aim at three objects: novelty, utility and charity. The only scientist named was Pasteur; the applause was such that Pasteur, who was sitting behind Sir James Paget, had to rise and bow to the huge assembly.
“I felt very proud,” wrote Pasteur to Mme. Pasteur in a letter dated that same day, “I felt inwardly very proud, not for myself—you know how little I care for triumph!—but for my country, in seeing that I was specially distinguished among that immense concourse of foreigners, especially of Germans, who are here in much greater numbers than the French, whose total, however, reaches two hundred and fifty. Jean Baptiste and René were in the Hall; you can imagine their emotion.
“After the meeting, we lunched at Sir James Paget’s house; he had the Prussian Crown Prince on his right and the Prince of Wales on his left. Then there was a gathering of about twenty-five or thirty guests in the drawing-room. Sir James presented me to the Prince of Wales, to whom I bowed, saying that I was happy to salute a friend to France. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘a great friend.’ Sir James Paget had the good taste not to ask me to be presented to the Prince of Prussia; though there is of course room for nothing but courtesy under such circumstances, I could not have brought myself to appear to wish to be presented to him. But he himself came up to me and said, ‘M. Pasteur, allow me to introduce myself to you, and to tell you that I had great pleasure in applauding you just now,’ adding some more pleasant things.”