Comptes Rendus Biologies (Nov 2022)

Pasteur the Arboisien

  • Bruniaux, Philippe

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5802/crbiol.84
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 345, no. 3
pp. 121 – 141

Abstract

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Louis Pasteur was born in Dole on December 27, 1822. The Pasteur family left the town of Dole in August 1825. After five years in Marnoz, Jean-Joseph Pasteur rented a tannery in Arbois in 1830.In the 1831 register of house visits, he is mentioned at 83 rue de Courcelles: “Pasteur Jean-Joseph, tanner, age 39, from Besançon. Jeanne Etiennette Roqui his wife, 37 years old, from Marnoz 4 children: Jeanne-Antoine 11 years old. Louis 9 years old. Joséphine 5 years old. Emilie 3 years old. A worker, Eloy Dole, 25 years old, from Poligny”. At that time, Arbois and its suburbs had nearly 7000 inhabitants. The young Pasteur first attended the mutual education school and then the municipal college. After failing in Paris in 1838 to prepare for the baccalaureate, Pasteur studied rhetoric in Arbois and then, in 1839, at the royal college in Besançon. In 1842, Pasteur entered the École normale supérieure. In 1849 he became a professor at the faculty of Strasbourg, 1854 professor and dean of the new faculty of sciences of Lille, 1857 Pasteur was at the Ecole normale supérieure as administrator and director of scientific studies.In spite of his high functions, Pasteur and his family always came back to Arbois, it was a return to their roots.“If there is no Arbois, there is no Pasteur,” said the writer and academician Erik Orsenna.

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