“Some nations have felt the wholesome breath of truth. Rich and large laboratories have been growing in Germany for the last thirty years, and many more are still being built; at Berlin and at Bonn two palaces, worth four million francs each, are being erected for chemical studies. St. Petersburg has spent three and a half million francs on a Physiological Institute; England, America, Austria, Bavaria have made most generous sacrifices. Italy too has made a start. “And France? “France has not yet begun....” He mentioned the sepulchre-like cellar where the great physiologist, Claude Bernard, was obliged to live; “and where?” wrote Pasteur. “In the very establishment which bears the name of the mother country, the Collège de France!” The laboratory of the Sorbonne was no better--a damp, dark room, one metre below the level of the street. He went on, demonstrating that the provincial Faculties were as destitute as those of Paris. “Who will believe me when I affirm that the budget of Public Instruction provides not a penny towards the progress of physical science in laboratories, that it is through a tolerated administrative fiction that some scientists, considered as professors, are permitted to draw from the public treasury towards the expenses of their own work, some of the allowance made to them for teaching purposes.” The manuscript was sent to the _Moniteur_ at the beginning of January, 1868. It had lately been publishing mild articles on Mussulman architecture, then on herring fishing in Norway. The official whose business it was to read over the articles sent to the paper literally jumped in his chair when he read this fiery denunciation; he declared those pages must be modified, cut down; the Administration could not be attacked in that way, especially by one of its own functionaries! M. Dalloz, the editor of the paper, knew that Pasteur would never consent to any alterations; he advised him to show the proofs to M. Conti, Napoleon III’s secretary. “The article cannot appear in the _Moniteur_, but why not publish it in booklet form?” wrote M. Conti to Pasteur after having shown these revelations to the Emperor. Napoleon, talking to Duruy the next day, January 9, showed great concern at such a state of things. “Pasteur is right,” said Duruy, “to expose such deficiencies; it is the best way to have them remedied. Is it not deplorable, almost scandalous, that the official world should be so indifferent on questions of science?”