“If echoes from this meeting could reach them ... our ancestors would learn that a revolution, the most formidable for thirty centuries, has shaken medical science to its very foundations, and that it is the work of a stranger to their corporation; and their sons do not cry Anathema, they admire him, bow to his laws.... We all proclaim ourselves disciples of Pasteur.”
On the very day after those words were pronounced, Pasteur saw the realization of one of his most ardent wishes, the inauguration of the new Sorbonne. At the sight of the wonderful facilities for work offered by this palace, he remembered Claude Bernard’s cellar, his own garret at the Ecole Normale, and felt a movement of patriotic pride.
In October, 1889, though his health remained shaken, he insisted on going to Alais, where a statue was being raised to J. B. Dumas. Many of his colleagues tried to dissuade him from this long and fatiguing journey, but he said: “I am alive, I shall go.” At the foot of the statue, he spoke of his master, one of those men who are “the tutelary spirits of a nation.”
The sericicultors, desiring to thank him for the five years he had spent in studying the silkworm disease, offered him an artistic souvenir: a silver heather twig laden with gold cocoons.
Pasteur did not fail to remind them that it was at the request of their fellow citizen that he had studied pébrine. He said, “In the expression of your gratitude, by which I am deeply touched, do not forget that the initiative was due to M. Dumas.”
Thus his character revealed itself on every occasion. Every morning, with a step rendered heavy by age and ill-health, he went from his rooms to the Hydrophobia Clinic, arriving there long before the patients. He superintended the preparation of the vaccinal marrows; no detail escaped him. When the time came for inoculations, he was already informed of each patient’s name, sometimes of his poor circumstances; he had a kind word for every one, often substantial help for the very poor. The children interested him most; whether severely bitten, or frightened at the inoculation, he dried their tears and consoled them. How many children have thus kept a memory of him! “When I see a child,” he used to say, “he inspires me with two feelings: tenderness for what he is now, respect for what he may become hereafter.”
Already in May, 1892, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway had formed various Committees of scientists and pupils of Pasteur to celebrate his seventieth birthday. In France, it was in November that the Medical and Surgical Section of the Academy of Sciences constituted a Subscription Committee to offer Pasteur an affectionate homage. Roty, the celebrated engraver, was desired to finish a medal he had already begun, representing Pasteur in profile, a skull cap on his broad forehead, the brow strongly prominent, the whole face full of energy and meditation. His shoulders are covered with the cape he usually wore in the morning in the passages of his Institute. Roty had not time to design a satisfactory reverse side; he surrounded with laurels and roses the following inscription: “To Pasteur, on his seventieth birthday. France and Humanity grateful.”
On the morning of December 27, 1892, the great theatre of the Sorbonne was filled. The seats of honour held the French and foreign delegates from Scientific Societies, the members of the Institute, and the Professors of Faculties. In the amphitheatre were the deputations from the Ecoles Normale, Polytechnique, Centrale, of Pharmacy, Vétérinaires, and of Agriculture—deep masses of students. People pointed out to each other Pasteur’s pupils, Messrs. Duclaux, Roux, Chamberland, Metchnikoff, in their places; M. Perdrix, a former Normalien, now an Agrégé-préparateur; M. Edouard Calmette, a former student of the Ecole Centrale, who had taken part in the studies on beer; and M. Denys Cochin, who, thirteen years before, had studied alcoholic fermentation in the laboratory of the Rue d’Ulm. The first gallery was full of those who had subscribed towards the presentation about to be made to Pasteur. In the second gallery, boys from lycées crowned the immense assembly with a youthful garland.
At half past 10 o’clock, whilst the band of the Republican Guard played a triumphal march, Pasteur entered, leaning on the arm of the President of the Republic. Carnot led him to a little table, whereon the addresses from the various delegates were to be laid. The Presidents of the Senate and of the Chamber, the Ministers and Ambassadors, took their seats on the platform. Behind the President of the Republic stood, in their uniform, the official delegates of the five Academies which form the Institut de France. The Academy of Medicine and the great Scientific Societies were represented by their presidents and life-secretaries.
M. Charles Dupuy, Minister of Public Instruction, rose to speak, and said, after retracing Pasteur’s great works—