After this very special study, dated at the beginning of 1848, one might imagine the graduate-curator closing his ears to all outside rumours and little concerned with political agitation, but that would be doing him an injustice. Those who witnessed the Revolution of 1848 remember how during the early days France was exalted with the purest patriotism. Pasteur had visions of a generous and fraternal Republic; the words _drapeau_ and _patrie_ moved him to the bottom of his soul. Lamartine[14] as a politician inspired him with an enthusiastic confidence; he delighted in the sight of a poet leader of men. Many others shared the same illusions. France, as Louis Veuillot has it, made the mistake of choosing her band-master as colonel of the regiment. Enrolled with his fellow students, Pasteur wrote thus to his parents: “I am writing from the Orleans Railway, where as a _garde national_[15] I am stationed. I am glad that I was in Paris during the February days[16] and that I am here still; I should be sorry to leave Paris just now. It is a great and a sublime doctrine which is now being unfolded before our eyes ... and if it were necessary I should heartily fight for the holy cause of the Republic.” “What a transformation of our whole being!” has written one who was then a candidate to the Ecole Normale, already noted by his masters for his good sense, Francisque Sarcey. “How those magical words of liberty and fraternity, this renewal of the Republic, born in the sunshine of our twentieth year, filled our hearts with unknown and absolutely delicious sensations! With what a gallant joy we embraced the sweet and superb image of a people of free men and brethren! The whole nation was moved as we were; like us, it had drunk of the intoxicating cup. The honey of eloquence flowed unceasingly from the lips of a great poet, and France believed, in childlike faith, that his word was efficacious to destroy abuses, cure evils and soothe sorrows.” One day when Pasteur was crossing the Place du Panthéon, he saw a gathering crowd around a wooden erection, decorated with the words: _Autel de la Patrie_. A neighbour told him that pecuniary offerings might be laid upon this altar. Pasteur goes back to the Ecole Normale, empties a drawer of all his savings, and returns to deposit it in thankful hands. “You say,” wrote his father on April 28, 1848, “that you have offered to France all your savings, amounting to 150 francs. You have probably kept a receipt of the office where this payment was made, with mention of the date and place?” And considering that this action should be made known, he advises him to publish it in the journal _Le National_ or _La Réforme_ in the following terms, “Gift to the _Patrie_: 150 francs, by the son of an old soldier of the Empire, Louis Pasteur of the Ecole Normale.” He wrote in the same letter, “You should raise a subscription in your school in favour of the poor Polish exiles who have done so much for us; it would be a good deed.”