Pasteur spent those summer weeks in his room or under the trees on the lawns of the Park. A few horses had been put out to grass, the stables being quite full, and occasionally came near, looking over their hurdles towards him. Pasteur felt a deep thankfulness in watching the busy comings and goings of Dr. Roux and his curator, M. Martin, and of the veterinary surgeon, M. Prévôt, who was entrusted with the bleeding operations and the distribution of the flasks of serum. He thought of all that would survive him and felt that his weakened hand might now drop the torch which had set so many others alight. And, more than resigned, he sat peacefully under a beautiful group of pines and purple beeches, listening to the readings of Mme. Pasteur and of his daughter. They smiled on him with that valiant smile which women know how to keep through deepest anguish.
Biographies interested him as of yore. There was at that time a renewal of interest in memories of the First Empire; old letters, memoirs, war anecdotes were being published every day. Pasteur never tired of those great souvenirs. Many of those stories brought him back to the emotions of his youth, but he no longer looked with the same eyes on the glory of conquerors. The true guides of humanity now seemed to him to be those who gave devoted service, not those who ruled by might. After enjoying pages full of the thrill of battlefields, Pasteur admired the life of a great and good man, St. Vincent de Paul. He loved this son of poor peasants, proud to own his humble birth before a vainglorious society; this tutor of a future cardinal, who desired to become the chaplain of some unhappy convicts; this priest, who founded the work of the Enfants Trouvés, and who established lay and religious alliance over the vast domain of charity.
Pasteur himself exerted a great and charitable influence. The unknown lady who had put at his disposal four scholarships for young men without means came to him in August and offered him the funds for a Pasteur Hospital, the natural outcome, she said, of the Pastorian discoveries.
Pasteur’s strength diminished day by day, he now could hardly walk. When he was seated in the Park, his grandchildren around him suggested young rose trees climbing around the trunk of a dying oak. The paralysis was increasing, and speech was becoming more and more difficult. The eyes alone remained bright and clear; Pasteur was witnessing the ruin of what in him was perishable.
How willingly they would have given a moment of their lives to prolong his, those thousands of human beings whose existence had been saved by his methods: sick children, women in lying-in hospitals, patients operated upon in surgical wards, victims of rabid dogs saved from hydrophobia, and so many others protected against the infinitesimally small! But, whilst visions of those living beings passed through the minds of his family, it seemed as if Pasteur already saw those dead ones who, like him, had preserved absolute faith in the Future Life.
The last week in September he was no longer strong enough to leave his bed, his weakness was extreme. On September 27, as he was offered a cup of milk: “I cannot,” he murmured; his eyes looked around him with an unspeakable expression of resignation, love and farewell. His head fell back on the pillows, and he slept; but, after this delusive rest, suddenly came the gaspings of agony. For twenty-four hours he remained motionless, his eyes closed, his body almost entirely paralyzed; one of his hands rested in that of Mme. Pasteur, the other held a crucifix.
Thus, surrounded by his family and disciples, in this room of almost monastic simplicity, on Saturday, September 28, 1895, at 4.40 in the afternoon, very peacefully, he passed away.
The End.
INDEX
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z