PASTEUR AND THE SILK WORMS I?9

cheered by the reading of this note, which seemed
to bring Pasteur back into their midst.

The building of the laboratory had been begun,
and hoardings erected around the site. Pasteur,
from his bed, asked day by day, "How are they
getting on?" But his wife and daughter, going
to the window of the dining-room which over-
looked the Ecole Normale garden, only brought
him back vague answers, for, as a matter of
fact, the workmen had disappeared from the very
first day of Pasteur's illness. All that could be
seen was a solitary labourer wheeling a barrow
aimlessly about, probably under the orders of
some official who feared to alarm the patient.

As Pasteur was not expected to recover, the
trouble and expense were deemed unnecessary.
Pasteur soon became aware of this, and one day
that General Fave had come to see him he gave
vent to some bitter feelings as to this cautious in-
terruption of the building works, saying that It
would have been simpler and more straightfor-
ward to state from the beginning that the work
was suspended in the expectation of a probable
demise.

Napoleon was informed of this excess of zeal,
not only by General Fave, but by Sainte Claire
Deville, who was a guest at Compiegne at the
beginning of November, 1868. He wrote to the
Minister of Public Instruction—

"My dear M. Duruy,—I have heard that—