Geniuses are often said to be neglected by their contemporaries. The expression is exemplified much less frequently in our own time than formerly. The rapid diffusion of ideas, and the consequent control and confirmation of scientific claims by many minds, enable the present generation to recognize merit before its possessor has starved. {315} Pasteur's career was certainly an exemplification of the fact that true genius, though it may meet with opposition, will be well rewarded. The son of the poor tanner of Dole, by the mere force of his intellectual energy, lifted himself to the level of earth's great ones. His funeral obsequies were a pageant in which French officialdom felt itself honored to take part. The President of the French Republic, the members of both houses of the legislative department, the officials of the city of Paris, the members of the faculty of the university, of the French Academy, and of the various scientific societies of the French capital, gathered to honor their mighty dead. Never has it been given to anyone without family prestige or political or ecclesiastical influence to have a great world-capital and a great nation accord such glorious obsequies, while all the world extended its sympathy and added paeans of praise. Nor was it only at the moment of death that the expression of sincere respect and merited honor was paid. When there was question of erecting a Pasteur institute, in which the master's great work could be carried on more effectually, contributions poured in from every part of France and from all over the civilized world. Two of the world's greatest hereditary rulers made it a point to visit the humble laboratory of the great scientist whenever they came to Paris. Alexander II, the Czar of the Russians, was the intimate friend of the tanner's son, who became the world's benefactor. Dom Pedro II, the late Emperor of Brazil was another royal visitor to Pasteur. In the library of the _Institut Pasteur_ at Paris, the busts of these two and of two other great friends of his, scarcely less in worldly importance and greater in their beneficence, keep watch above the ashes of the dead scientist. They are Baroness Hirsch, the world benefactress, and Baron Albert Rothschild, the head of the French branch of the great banking family. {316}