“My dear master, ... Nothing has surprised me more--or so agreeably,--than the news of this Exhibition prize medal, which I was far from expecting. It is a new proof of your kindness, for I feel sure that I have to thank you for originating such a favour. I shall do all I can to make myself worthy of it by my perseverance in putting all difficulties aside from the subject I am now engaged in, and in which the light is growing brighter every day. If that flachery disease had not come to complicate matters, everything would be well by now. I cannot tell you how absolutely sure I now feel of my conclusions concerning the corpuscle disease. I could say a great deal about the articles of Messrs. Béchamp, Estor and Balbiani, but I will follow your advice and answer nothing....” Dumas had been advising Pasteur not to waste his time by answering his adversaries and contradictors. Pasteur’s system was making way; ten microscopes were set up, here and there, in the town of Alais; most seed merchants were taking up the examination of the dead moths, and the Pont-Gisquet colony had samples brought in daily for inspection. “I have already prevented many failures for next year,” he wrote to Dumas (June, 1867), “but I always beg as a favour that a little of the condemned seed may be raised, so as to confirm the exactness of my judgment.” His system was indeed quite simple; at the moment when the moths leave their cocoons and mate with each other, the cultivator separates them and places each female on a little square of linen where it lays its eggs. The moth is afterwards pinned up in a corner of the same square of linen, where it gradually dries up; later on, in autumn or even in winter, the withered moth is moistened in a little water, pounded in a mortar, and the paste examined with a microscope. If the least trace of corpuscles appears the linen is burnt, together with the seed which would have perpetuated the disease. Pasteur came back to Paris to receive his medal; perhaps his presence was not absolutely necesary, but he did not question the summons he received. He always attached an absolute meaning to words and to things, not being one of those who accept titles and homage with an inward and ironical smile.