9781422277652

When he was sixteen, the time came to discuss Louis’s further education. A friend of his father, Captain Barbier, kindly offered to look after Louis if he went to school in Paris. Jean Joseph Pasteur hesitated, but eventually agreed that Louis should go. His close school friend, Jules Vercel, was also going. However, the expedition was not a success. Louis grew very homesick, and after only a few weeks, his father came to Paris to take him home. Back in Arbois, Louis again took up drawing in pastels, and produced a little portrait gallery of the friends of the family. The problem of his higher education remained. Pasteur decided to go to the Royal College at Besançon, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from his home. While he was there, he was able to see his family often and he did very well. He finished a degree of Bachelor of Letters in August 1840. At the end of the summer break,

Aerial view of the old city and citadel of Besançon, a town in eastern France near the border with Switzerland. Pasteur attended the college there, earning a degree in 1840.

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