It was among that stream of soldiers that Pasteur attempted to find his son. His old friend and neighbour, Jules Vercel, saw him start, accompanied by his wife and daughter, on Tuesday, January 24, in a half broken down old carriage, the last that was left in the town. After journeying for some hours in the snow, the sad travellers spent the night in a little wayside inn near Montrond; the old carriage with its freight of travelling boxes stood on the roadside like a gipsy’s caravan. The next morning they went on through a pine forest where the deep silence was unbroken save by the falling masses of snow from the spreading branches. They slept at Censeau, the next day at Chaffois, and it was only on the Friday that they reached Pontarlier, by roads made almost impracticable by the snow, the carriage now a mere wreck. The town was full of soldiers, some crouching round fires in the street, others stepping across their dead horses and begging for a little straw to lie on. Many had taken refuge in the church and were lying on the steps of the altar; a few were attempting to bandage their frozen feet, threatened with gangrene. Suddenly the news spread that the general-in-chief, Bourbaki, had shot himself through the brain. This did not excite much surprise. He had telegraphed two days before to the Minister of War: “You cannot have an idea of the sufferings that the army has endured since the beginning of December. It is martyrdom to be in command at such a time,” he added despairingly. “The retreat from Moscow cannot have been worse than this,” said Pasteur to a staff officer, Commandant Bourboulon, a nephew of Sainte Claire Deville, whom he met in the midst of those horrors and who could give him no information as to his son’s battalion of _Chasseurs_. “All that I can tell you,” said a soldier anxiously questioned by Mme. Pasteur, “is that out of the 1,200 men of that battalion there are but 300 left.” As she was questioning another, a soldier who was passing stopped: “Sergeant Pasteur? Yes, he is alive; I slept by him last night at Chaffois. He has remained behind; he is ill. You might meet him on the road towards Chaffois.” The Pasteurs started again on the road followed the day before. They had barely passed the Pontarlier gate when a rough cart came by. A soldier muffled in his great coat, his hands resting on the edge of the cart, started with surprise. He hurried down, and the family embraced without a word, so great was their emotion.