The Marshal, though calling himself the most modest of sericicultors, had been able to appreciate the safety of a method which produced the same results in Paris as at the Pont Gisquet; the octogenarian veteran dwelt with complacency on the splendid condition of his silkworms in all their phases from the minute worm hatched from the seed-like egg to the splendid cocoon of white or yellow silk. It occurred to Vaillant to suggest a decisive experiment in favour of Pasteur and of the silkworm industry. The Prince Imperial owned in Illyria, about six leagues from Trieste, a property called Villa Vicentina. One of Napoleon’s sisters, Elisa Bonaparte, had lived peacefully there after the fall of the first Empire, and had left it to her daughter, Princess Baciocchi, who bequeathed it to the Prince Imperial, with the rest of her fortune. Vines and mulberry trees grew plentifully on that vast domain, but the produce of cocoons was nil, pébrine and flachery having devastated the place. Marshal Vaillant, Minister of the Emperor’s Household, desired to render the princely property once again productive and, at the same time, to give his colleague of the Institute an opportunity of “definitely silencing the opposition created by ignorance and jealousy.” In a letter dated October 9, he requested Pasteur to send out 900 ounces of seed to Villa Vicentina, a large quantity, for one ounce produced, on an average, thirty kilogrammes of cocoons. Six days later the Marshal wrote to M. Tisserand, the director of the Crown agricultural establishments, who knew Villa Vicentina: “I have suggested to the Emperor that M. Pasteur should be offered a lodging at Villa Vicentina; the Emperor acquiesces in the most gracious manner. Tell me whether that is possible.” M. Tisserand, heartily applauding the Marshal’s excellent idea, described the domain and the dwelling house, Villa Elisa, a white Italian two-storied house, situated amongst lawns and trees in a park of sixty hectares. “It would indeed be well,” continued M. Tisserand, “that M. Pasteur should find peace, rest, and a return of the health he has so valiantly compromised in his devotion to his country, in the midst of the lands which will be the first to profit by the fruit of his splendid discoveries and where his name will be blessed before long.” Pasteur started three weeks later with his family; the long journey had to be taken in short stages, the state of his health still being very precarious. He stopped at Alais on the way, in order to fetch the selected seed, and on November 25, at 9 p.m., he reached Villa Vicentina. The fifty tenants of the domain did not suspect that the new arrival would bring back with him the prosperity of former years. Raulin, the “temporizer,” joined his master a few weeks later.