Louis Pasteur #248097

Louis Pasteur was descended from one of those ancient peasant families that were at tached for centuries to the land they tilled, and who have given so many illustrious sons to France. In the seventeenth century his anoes tors were still serfs Of the soil, in Franche Comté, and the first who arose from servitude was Louis Pasteur's great-grandfather, Claude Etienne, who, having abandoned the labour of the fields, was in the middle of the eighteenth century a tanner at Salins, and one of the bour geoisie Of that town. He came of a race distin guished for serious-mindedness and aptitude for toil, positive qualities which produced ar tizans solicitous of the good renown of their calling, and gifts of imagination which urged them on to raise themselves above their en vironment by a superior education.