Joseph Pasteur at last allowed himself to be persuaded, and Louis’ departure was fixed for the end of October, 1838. He was not going alone: Jules Vercel, his dear school friend, was also going to Paris to work for his “baccalauréat.”[4] This youth had a most happy temperament: unambitious, satisfied with each day’s work as it came, he took pride and pleasure in the success of others, and especially in that of “Louis,” as he then and always fraternally called his friend. The two boys’ friendship went some way to alleviate the natural anxieties felt by both families. The slowness and difficulty of travelling in those days gave to farewells a sort of solemn sadness; they were repeated twenty times whilst the horses were being harnessed and the luggage hoisted on to the coach in the large courtyard of the “Hôtel de la Poste.” On that bleak October morning, amidst a shower of rain and sleet, the two lads had to sit under the tarpaulin behind the driver; there were no seats left inside or under the hood. In spite of Vercel’s habit of seeing the right side of things and his joy in thinking that in forty-eight hours he, the country boy, would see the wonders of Paris--in spite of Pasteur’s brave resolve to make the most of his unexpected opportunities of study, of the now possible entrance into the “Ecole Normale”--both looked with heavy hearts at the familiar scene they were leaving behind them--their homes, the square tower of Arbois church, the heights of the Ermitage in the grey distance. Every native of Jura, though he affects to feel nothing of the kind, has, at the bottom of his heart, a strong feeling of attachment for the corner of the world where he has spent his childhood; as soon as he forsakes his native soil his thoughts return to it with a painful and persistent charm. The two boys did not take much interest in the towns where the coach stopped to change horses, Dôle, Dijon, Auxerre, Joigny, Sens, Fontainebleau, etc. When Louis Pasteur reached Paris he did not feel like Balzac’s student hero, confidently defying the great city. In spite of the strong will already visible in his pensive features, his grief was too deep to be reasoned away. No one at first suspected this; he was a reserved youth, with none of the desire to talk which leads weak natures to ease their sorrows by pouring them out; but, when all was quiet in the Impasse des Feuillantines and his sleeping comrades could not break in upon his regrets, he would lie awake for hours thinking of his home and repeating the mournful line-- How endless unto watchful anguish Night doth seem.