Dumas wrote to him early in February: “My dear friend and colleague,—I have been thinking of you so much! I dread fatigue for you, and wish I could spare it you, whilst hoping that you may successfully achieve your great and patriotic undertaking. I have hesitated to write to you for fear you should feel obliged to answer. However, I should like to have direct news of you, as detailed as possible, and, besides that, I should be much obliged if you could send me a line to enlighten me on the two following points—
“1. When are you going back to Alais? And when will your Alais broods be near enough to their time to be most interesting to visit?
“2. What should I say to people who beg for healthy seed as if my pockets were full of it? I tell them it is too late; but if you could tell me a means of satisfying them, I should be pleased, particularly in the case of General Randon and M. Husson. The Marshal (Vaillant) is full of solicitude for you, and we never meet but our whole conversation turns upon you. With me, it is natural. With him less so, perhaps, but anyhow, he thinks of you as much as is possible, and this gives me a great deal of pleasure.... Please present to Madame Pasteur our united compliments and wishes. We wish the South could have the virtues of Achilles’ lance—of healing the wounds it has caused.—Yours affectionately.”
Pasteur was reduced to complete helplessness through having slipped and fallen on the stone floor of his uncomfortable house, and was obliged to dictate the following letter—
“My dear master,—I thank you for thinking of the poor invalid. I am very much in the same condition as when I left Paris, my progress having been retarded by a fall on my left side. Fortunately, I sustained no fracture, but only bruises, which were naturally painful and very slow to disappear.
“There are now no remaining traces of that accident, and I am as I was three weeks ago. The improvement in the movements of the leg and arm appears to have begun again, but with excessive slowness. I am about to have recourse to electricity, under the advice and instructions of Dr. Godélier, by means of a small Ruhmkorff apparatus which he has kindly sent me. My brain is still very weak.
“This is how my days are spent: in the morning my three young friends come to see me, and I arrange the day’s work. I get up at twelve, after having my breakfast in bed, and having had the newspaper read to me. If fine, I then spend an hour or two in the little garden of this house. Usually, if I am feeling pretty well, I dictate to my dear wife a page, or more frequently half a page, of a little book I am preparing, and in which I intend to give a short account of the whole of my observations. Before dinner, which I have alone with my wife and my little girl in order to avoid the fatigue of conversation, my young collaborators bring me a report of their work. About seven or half past, I always feel terribly tired and inclined to sleep twelve consecutive hours; but I invariably wake at midnight, not to sleep again until towards morning, when I doze again for an hour or two. What makes me hope for an ultimate cure is the fact that my appetite keeps good, and that those short hours of sleep appear to be sufficient. You see that on the whole I am doing nothing rash, being moreover rigorously watched by my wife and little daughter. The latter pitilessly takes books, pens, papers and pencils away from me with a perseverance which causes me joy and despair.
“It is because I know your affection for your pupils that I venture to give you so many details. I will now answer the other questions in your letter.
“I shall be at Alais from April 1; that will be the time when they will begin hatching seed for the industrial campaign, which will consequently be concluded about May 20 at the latest. Seeding will take place during June, more or less early according to departments. It is indeed very late to obtain seed, especially indigenous seed prepared according to my process. I had foreseen that I should receive demands at the last moment, and that I should do well to put by a few ounces; but, about three weeks ago, our energetic Minister wrote to ask me for some seed to distribute to schoolmasters, and I promised him what I had. However I will take some from his share and send you several lots of five grammes. The director of a most interesting Austrian establishment has also ordered two ounces, saying he is convinced of the excellence of my method. His establishment is a most interesting experimental magnanerie, founded in a handsome Illyrian property. Lastly, I have also promised two ounces to M. le Comte de Casabianca. One of my young men is going out to his place in Corsica to do the seeding.
“I was much touched by what you tell me of Marshal Vaillant’s kind interest in my health, and also by his kind thought in informing me of the encouragement given to my studies by the Society of Agriculture. I wish the cultivators of your South had a little of his scientific and methodical spirit.