Another familiar friend was a philosopher named Bousson de Mairet. An indefatigable reader, he never went out without a book or pamphlet in his pocket. He spent his life in compiling from isolated facts annals in which the characteristics of the Francs-Comtois, and especially the Arboisians, were reproduced in detail, with labour worthy of a Benedictine monk. He often came to spend a quiet evening with the Pasteur family, who used to question him and to listen to his interesting records of that strange Arboisian race, difficult to understand, presenting as it does a mixture of heroic courage and that slightly ironical good humour which Parisians and Southerners mistake for naïveness. Arboisians never distrust themselves, but are sceptical where others are concerned. They are proud of their local history, and even of their rodomontades. For instance, on August 4, 1830, they sent an address to the Parisians to express their indignation against the “Ordonnances”[2] and to assure them that all the available population of Arbois was ready to fly to the assistance of Paris. In April, 1834, a lawyer’s clerk, passing one evening through Arbois by the coach, announced to a few _gardes nationaux_ who were standing about that the Republic was proclaimed at Lyons. Arbois immediately rose in arms; the insurgents armed themselves with guns from the Hôtel de Ville. Louis Pasteur watched the arrival from Besançon of 200 grenadiers, four squadrons of light cavalry, and a small battery of artillery sent to reduce the rebels. The _sous-préfet_ of Poligny having asked the rioters who were their leaders, they answered with one voice, “We are all leaders.” A few days later the great, the good news was published in all the newspapers: “Arbois, Lyons, and Paris are pacified.” The Arboisians called their neighbours “the Braggarts of Salins,” probably with the ingenious intention of turning such a well-deserved accusation from themselves. Louis Pasteur, whose mind already had a serious bent, preferred to these recent anecdotes such historical records as that of the siege of Arbois under Henry IV, when the Arboisians held out for three whole days against a besieging army of 25,000 men. His childish imagination, after being worked upon by these stories of local patriotism, eagerly seized upon ideals of a higher patriotism, and fed upon the glory of the French people as represented by the conquests of the Empire. He watched his parents, day by day working under dire necessity and ennobling their weary task by considering their children’s education almost as essential as their daily bread; and, as in all things the father and mother took an interest in noble motives and principles, their material life was lightened and illumined by their moral life.