Louis Pasteur, Up Close

One day, Pasteur asked his mother if he could paint her portrait. He was 13. It was the first time he had used pastels.  He liked to sketch his entourage—his friends and well-known people of Arbois—and he produced quite a portrait collection of men and women during the first half of the 19th century.  His works show great observational skill and their strong lines make them very striking.

Marie Laurent, born in 1826, was the daughter of the Rector of the University of Strasbourg, where Pasteur was appointed Professor of Physics and Chemistry. They married in 1849.  Marie was intelligent and had been raised in an intellectual environment. She quickly became passionate about her husband's research and began to help him. 

... according to Emile Roux, Pasteur's faithful colleague and an eminent Pasteurian who would later direct the Pasteur Institute for 30 years. Cheerful and strong with a positive outlook, Marie was an invaluable support for Pasteur. She coped with the death of three of their five children with great courage. 

After her husband died, Marie became the figurehead of the Pasteur Institute. She made it her mission to ensure that her husband's work continued to shine and continued to promote their family line. She died in 1910 at the age of 84. . 

This seemingly unremarkable French staircase has a double banister and low steps. These were necessary to help Pasteur get from one floor to the next. On October 19, 1868, he had a stroke. He was just 46-years old. After that, his forearm was bent and contracted for the rest of his life and he experienced great difficulty moving around due to paralysis in his left side. 

Pasteur wanted to pay tribute to Lazzaro Spallanzani by making a space for him in his large dining room. This portrait of Spallanzani by Jules-Albert Edouard faces the portrait of Pasteur, symbolizing the eternal dialogue between men of science. At the time, the Abbot Spallanzani—an 18th century biologist—refuted the theory of spontaneous generation, according to which small living organisms can reproduce spontaneously. The remarkable experiments of the Italian biologist clearly inspired Pasteur, who proved in the following century that "spontaneous generation is an illusion."

This vase by Emile Gallé, a famous artist from Lorraine, was given to Pasteur by the teachers and students of the École Normale Supérieure on its jubilee in 1892. 

It depicts microorganisms through a transparent microscope—a testament to the scientist's discoveries. Victor Hugo's verse is apparent on the glass: "I meditate ... and always my instinct brings me back / To know the depth of human suffering." This is one of the most beautiful pieces in the museum.

The small dining room is one of the only rooms to have been altered. When the opportunity to restore it arose, it was a fragment of wallpaper found behind the fireplace mirror overmantel and a photograph dating from 1910—the date of Marie Pasteur's death—that enabled its original character to be recreated. This wonderful restoration began in 2008, all thanks to the generosity of one of its patrons. 

Since its creation, the Pasteur Institute has been financed through donations, which were largely made as a result of the great popularity of its founder.