So, between that corner in the Jura and the Ecole Normale, there was a continual exchange of thoughts; the smallest incidents of daily life were related. The father, knowing that he should inform the son of the fluctuations of the family budget, spoke of his more or less successful sales of leathers at the Besançon fair. The son was ever hunting in the progress of industry anything that could tend to lighten the father’s heavy handicraft. But though the father declared himself ready to examine Vauquelin’s new tanning process, which obviated the necessity of keeping the skins so long in the pits, he asked himself with scrupulous anxiety whether leathers prepared in that way would last as long as the others. Could he safely guarantee them to the shoemakers, who were unanimous in praising the goods of the little tannery-yard, but alas equally unanimous in forgetting to reward the disinterested tanner by prompt payment? He supplied his family with the necessaries of life: what more did he want? When he had news of his _Normalien_ he was thoroughly happy. He associated himself with his son’s doings, sharing his enthusiasm over Dumas’ lectures, and taking an interest in Pouillet’s classes: Pouillet was a Franc-Comtois, and had been a student at the Ecole Normale; he was now Professor of Physics at the Sorbonne and a member of the _Institut_.[10] When Balard, a lecturer at the Ecole, was nominated to the Académie des Sciences, Louis told his father of it with the delight of an admiring pupil.