The next morning a stag hunt was organized; riders in handsome costumes, open carriages drawn by six horses and containing guests, entered the forest; a stag was soon brought to bay by the hounds. In the evening, after dinner, there was a torchlight procession in the great courtyard. Amid a burst of trumpets, the footmen in state livery, standing in a circle, held aloft the flaming torches. In the centre, a huntsman held part of the carcase of the stag and waved it to and fro before the greedy eyes of the hounds, who, eager to hurl themselves upon it, and now restrained by a word, then let loose, and again called back all trembling at their discomfiture, were at length permitted to rush upon and devour their prey. The next day offered another item on the programme, a visit to the castle of Pierrefonds, marvellously restored by Viollet le Duc at the expense of the Imperial purse. Pasteur, who, like the philosopher, might have said, “I am never bored but when I am being entertained,” made his arrangements so that the day should not be entirely wasted. He made an appointment for his return with the head butler, hoping to find a few diseased wines in the Imperial cellar. That department, however, was so well administered that he was only able to find seven or eight suspicious-looking bottles. The tall flunkeys, who scarcely realized the scientific interest offered by a basketful of wine bottles, watched Pasteur more or less ironically as he returned to his room, where he had the pleasure of finding his microscope and case of instruments sent from the Rue d’Ulm. He remained upstairs, absorbed as he would have been in his laboratory, in the contemplation of a drop of bitter wine revealing the tiny mycoderma which caused the bitterness. In the meanwhile some of the other guests were gathered in the smoking room, smilingly awaiting the Empress’s five o’clock tea, whilst others were busy with the preparations for the performance of Racine’s _Plaideurs_, which Provost, Regnier, Got, Delaunay, Coquelin, and Mademoiselle Jouassain were going to act that very evening in the theatre of the palace. On the Sunday, at 4 p.m., he was received privately by their Majesties, for their instruction and edification. He wrote in a letter to a friend: “I went to the Emperor with my microscope, my wine samples, and all my paraphernalia. When I was announced, the Emperor came up to meet me and asked me to come in. M. Conti, who was writing at a table, rose to leave the room, but was invited to stay. Then he fetched the Empress, and I began to show their Majesties various objects under the microscope and to explain them; it lasted a whole hour.”