“I congratulate you,” answered Biot on the second of June. “Your discovery is now complete. M. de Senarmont will be as delighted as I am. Please congratulate also Mme. Pasteur from me; she must be as pleased as you.” It was by maintaining tartrate of cinchonin at a high temperature for several hours that Pasteur had succeeded in transforming tartaric acid into racemic acid. Without entering here into technical details (which are to be found in a report of the Paris Pharmaceutical Society, concerning the prize accorded to Pasteur for the artificial production of racemic acid) it may be added that he had also produced the neutral tartaric acid--that is: with no action on polarized light--which appeared at the expense of racemic acid already formed. There were henceforth four different tartaric acids:--(1) the right or dextro-tartaric acid; (2) the left or lævo-tartaric acid; (3) the combination of the right and the left or racemic acid; and (4) the meso-tartaric acid, optically inactive. The reports of the Académie des Sciences also contain accounts of occasional discoveries, of researches of all kinds accessory to the history of racemic acid. Thus aspartic acid had caused Pasteur to make a sudden journey from Strasburg to Vendôme. A chemist named Dessaignes--who was municipal receiver of that town, and who found time through sheer love of science for researches on the constitution of divers substances--had announced a fact which Pasteur wished to verify; it turned out to be inaccurate. One whole sitting of the Académie, the third of January, 1853, was given up to Pasteur’s name and growing achievements. After all this Pasteur came back to Arbois with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour. He had not won it in the same way as his father had, but he deserved it as fully. Joseph Pasteur, delighting in his illustrious son, wrote effusively to Biot; indeed the old scientist had had his share in this act of justice. Biot answered in the following letter, which is a further revelation of his high and independent ideal of a scientific career.