His health soon improved sufficiently for him to be able to take some short walks. But his thoughts constantly recurred to the laboratory. M. Duclaux was then thinking of starting a monthly periodical entitled Annals of the Pasteur Institute. Pasteur, writing to him on December 27, 1887, to express his approbation, suggested various experiments to be attempted. He attributed the action of the preventive inoculations to a vaccinal matter associated with the rabic microbe. Pasteur had thought at first that the first development of the pathogenic microbe caused the disappearance from the organism of an element necessary to the life of that microbe. It was, in other words, a theory of exhaustion. But since 1885, he adopted the other idea, supported indeed by biologists, that immunity was due to a substance left in the body by the culture of the microbe and which opposed the invasion—a theory of addition.
“I am happy to learn,” wrote Villemin, his friend and his medical adviser, “that your health is improving; continue to rest in that beautiful country, you have well deserved it, and rest is absolutely necessary to you. You have overtaxed yourself beyond all reason and you must make up for it. Repairs to the nervous system are worked chiefly by relaxation from the mental storms and moral anxieties which your rabid work has occasioned in you. Give the Bordighera sun a chance!”
But Pasteur was not allowed the rest he so much needed; on January 4, 1887, referring to a death which had occurred after treatment in the preceding December, M. Peter declared that the antirabic cure was useless; at the following meeting he called it dangerous when applied in the “intensive” form. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Chauveau and Verneuil immediately intervened, declaring that the alleged fact was “devoid of any scientific character.” A week later, MM. Grancher and Brouardel bore the brunt of the discussion. Grancher, Pasteur’s representative on this occasion, disproved certain allegations, and added: “The medical men who have been chosen by M. Pasteur to assist him in his work have not hesitated to practise the antirabic inoculation on themselves, as a safeguard against an accidental inoculation of the virus which they are constantly handling. What greater proof can they give of their bonâ fide convictions?” He showed that the mortality amongst the cases treated remained below 1 per 100. “M. Pasteur will soon publish foreign statistics from Samara, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Warsaw and Vienna: they are all absolutely favourable.”
As it was insinuated that the laboratory of the Ecole Normale kept its failures a secret, it was decided that the Annals of the Pasteur Institute would publish a monthly list and bulletin of patients under treatment.
Vulpian, at another meeting (it was almost the last time he was heard at the Académie de Médecine), said, à propos of what he called an inexcusable opposition, “This new benefit adds to the number of those which our illustrious Pasteur has already rendered to humanity.... Our works and our names will soon be buried under the rising tide of oblivion: the name and the works of M. Pasteur will continue to stand on heights too great to be reached by its sullen waves.” Pasteur was much disturbed by the noise of these discussions; every post increased his feverishness, and he spoke every morning of returning to Paris to answer his opponents.
It was a pitiful thing to note on his worn countenance the visible signs of the necessity of the peace and rest offered by this beautiful land of serene sunshine; and to hear at the same time a constant echo of those angry debates. Anonymous letters were sent to him, insulting newspaper articles—all that envy and hatred can invent; the seamy side of human nature was being revealed to him. “I did not know I had so many enemies,” he said mournfully. He was consoled to some extent by the ardent support of the greatest medical men in France.
Vulpian, in a statement to the Académie des Sciences, constituted himself Pasteur’s champion. Pasteur indeed was safe from attacks in that centre, but certain low slanderers who attended the public meetings of the Académie continued to accuse Pasteur of concealing the failures of his method. Vulpian—who was furiously angry at such an insinuation against “a man like M. Pasteur, whose good faith, loyalty and scientific integrity should be an example to his adversaries as they are to his friends”—thought that it was in the interest both of science and of humanity to state once more the facts recently confirmed by new statistics; the public is so impressionable and so mobile in its opinions that one article is often enough to shake general confidence. He was therefore anxious to reassure all those who had been inoculated on and who might be induced by those discussions to wonder with anguish whether they really were saved. The Academy of Sciences decided that Vulpian’s statement should be inserted in extenso in all the reports and a copy of it sent to every village in France. Vulpian wrote to Pasteur at the same time, “All your admirers hope that those interested attacks will merely excite your contempt. Fine weather is no doubt reigning at Bordighera: you must take advantage of it and become quite well.... The Academy of Medicine is almost entirely on your side; there are at the most but four or five exceptions.”
Pasteur had a few calm days after these debates. Whilst planning out new investigations, he was much interested in the plans for his Institute which were now submitted to him. His thoughts were always away from Bordighera, which he seemed to look upon as a sort of exile. This impression was partly due to the situation of the town, so close to the frontier, and the haunt of so many homeless wanderers. He once met a sad-faced, still beautiful woman, in mourning robes, and recognized the Empress Eugénie.
Shortly afterwards, he received a visit from Prince Napoleon, who dragged his haughty ennui from town to town. He presented himself at the Villa Bischoffsheim under the name of Count Moncalieri, coming, he said, to greet his colleague of the Institute. Rabies formed the subject of their conversation. The next day, Pasteur called on the Prince, in his commonplace hotel rooms, a mere temporary resting place for the exiled Bonaparte, whose mysterious, uncompleted destiny was made more enigmatical by his startling resemblance to the great Emperor.
On February 23, the day after the carnival, early in the morning, a violent earthquake cast terror over that peaceful land where nature hides with flowers the spectre of death. At 6.20 a.m. a low and distant rumbling sound was heard, coming from the depths of the earth and resembling the noise of a train passing in an underground tunnel; houses began to rock and ominous cracks were heard. This first shock lasted more than a minute, during which the sense of solidity disappeared altogether, to be succeeded by a feeling of absolute, hopeless, impotence. No doubt, in every household, families gathered together, with a sudden yearning not to be divided. Pasteur’s wife, children and grandchildren had barely had time to come to him when another shock took place, more terrible than the first; everything seemed about to be engulfed in an abyss. Never had morning been more radiant; there was not a breath of wind, the air was absolutely transparent.