The two colleagues whom Pasteur had chosen for his Academic sponsors were J. B. Dumas and Nisard. Dumas, who appreciated more than any one the scientific progress due to Pasteur, and who applauded his brilliant success, was touched by the simplicity and modesty which his former pupil showed, now as in the distant past, when the then obscure young man sat taking notes on the Sorbonne benches.
Their mutual relationship had remained unchanged when Pasteur, accompanied by one of his family, rang at Dumas’ door in March, 1882, with the manuscript of his noble speech in his pocket; he seemed more like a student, respectfully calling on his master, than like a savant affectionately visiting a colleague.
Dumas received Pasteur in a little private study adjoining the fine drawing-room where he was accustomed to dispense an elegant hospitality. Pasteur drew a stool up to a table and began to read, but in a shy and hurried manner, without even raising his eyes towards Dumas, who listened, enthroned in his armchair, with an occasional murmur of approbation. Whilst Pasteur’s careworn face revealed some of his ardent struggles and persevering work, nothing perturbed Dumas’ grave and gentle countenance. His smile, at most times prudently affable and benevolent in varying degree, now frankly illumined his face as he congratulated Pasteur. He called to mind his own reception speech at the Academy when he had succeeded Guizot, and the fact that he too had concluded by a confession of faith in his Creator.
Pasteur’s other sponsor, Nisard, almost an octogenarian, was not so happy as Dumas; death had deprived him of almost all his old friends. It was a great joy to him when Pasteur came to see him on the wintry Sunday afternoons; he fancied himself back again at the Ecole Normale and the happy days when he reigned supreme in that establishment. Pasteur’s deference, greater even perhaps than it had been in former times, aided the delightful delusion. Though Nisard was ever inclined to bring a shade of patronage into every intimacy, he was a conversationalist of the old and rare stamp. Pasteur enjoyed hearing Nisard’s recollections and watching for a smile lighting up the almost blind face. Those Sunday talks reminded him of the old delightful conversations with Chappuis at the Besançon College when, in their youthful fervour, they read together André Chénier’s and Lamartine’s verses. Eighteen years later, Pasteur had not missed one of Sainte Beuve’s lectures to the Ecole Normale students; he liked that varied and penetrating criticism, opening sidelights on every point of the literary horizon. Nisard understood criticism rather as a solemn treaty, with clauses and conditions; with his taste for hierarchy, he even gave different ranks to authors as if they had been students before his chair. But, when he spoke, the rigidity of his system was enveloped in the grace of his conversation. Pasteur had but a restricted corner of his mind to give to literature, but that corner was a privileged one; he only read what was really worth reading, and every writer worthy of the name inspired him with more than esteem, with absolute respect. He had a most exalted idea of Literature and its influence on society; he was saying one day to Nisard that Literature was a great educator: “The mind alone can if necessary suffice to Science; both the mind and the heart intervene in Literature, and that explains the secret of its superiority in leading the general train of thought.” This was preaching to an apostle: no homage to literature ever seemed too great in the eyes of Nisard.
He approved of the modest exordium in Pasteur’s speech—
“At this moment when presenting myself before this illustrious assembly, I feel once more the emotion with which I first solicited your suffrages. The sense of my own inadequacy is borne in upon me afresh, and I should feel some confusion in finding myself in this place, were it not my duty to attribute to Science itself the honour—so to speak, an impersonal one—which you have bestowed upon me.”
The Permanent Secretary, Camille Doucet, well versed in the usages of the Institute, and preoccupied with the effect produced, thought that the public would not believe in such self-effacement, sincere as it was, and sent the following letter to Pasteur with the proof-sheet of his speech—
“Dear and honoured colleague, allow me to suggest to you a modification of your first sentence; your modesty is excessive.”
Camille Doucet had struck out the sense of my own inadequacy is borne in upon me afresh, and further so to speak, an impersonal one. Pasteur consulted Nisard, and the sense of my own inadequacy was replaced by the sense of my deficiencies, while Pasteur adhered energetically to so to speak, an impersonal one; he saw in his election less a particular distinction than a homage rendered to Science in general.
A reception at the Académie Française is like a sensational first night at a theatre; a special public is interested days beforehand in every coming detail. Wives, daughters, sisters of Academicians, great ladies interested in coming candidates, widows of deceased Academicians, laureates of various Academy prizes—the whole literary world agitates to obtain tickets. Pasteur’s reception promised to be full of interest, some even said piquancy, for it fell to Renan to welcome him.