“Where is the government which has secured such a majority?” wrote Pasteur’s old friend Chappuis, now Rector of the Grenoble Academy. The value of the recompense was certainly much enhanced by the fact that the Assembly, divided upon so many subjects, had been almost unanimous in its feeling of gratitude towards him who had laboured so hard for Science, for the country and for Humanity. “Bravo, my dear Pasteur: I am glad for you and for myself, and proud for us all. Your devoted friend, Sainte Claire Deville.” “You are going to be a happy scientist,” wrote M. Duclaux, “for you can already see, and you will see more and more, the triumph of your doctrines and of your discoveries.” Those who imagined that this national recompense was the close of a great chapter, perhaps even the last chapter of the book of his life, gave him, in their well-meaning ignorance, some advice which highly irritated him: they advised him to rest. It is true that his cerebral hæmorrhage had left him with a certain degree of lameness and a slight stiffness of the left hand, those external signs reminding him only too well of the threatening possibility of another stroke; but his mighty soul was more than ever powerful to master his infirm body. It was therefore evident that Nisard, usually very subtle in his insight into character, did not thoroughly understand Pasteur when he wrote to him, “Now, dear friend, you must give up your energies to living for your family, for all those who love you, and a little too for yourself.” In spite of his deep, even passionate tenderness for his family, Pasteur had other desires than to limit his life to such a narrow circle. Every man who knows he has a mission to fulfil feels that there are rays of a light purer and more exalted than that proceeding from the hearth. As to the suggestion that Pasteur should take care of his own health, it was as useless as it would be to advise certain men to take care of that of others. Dr. Andral had vainly said and written that he should forbid Pasteur any assiduous labour. Pasteur considered that not to work was to lose the object of living at all. If, however, a certain equilibrium was established between the anxious solicitude of friends, the prohibitions of medical advisers and the great amount of work which Pasteur insisted on doing, it was owing to her who with a discreet activity watched in silence to see that nothing outside his work should complicate Pasteur’s life, herself his most precious collaborator, the confidante of every experiment.