gave myself the malicious pleasure of bringing a large
number of very small closed flasks, into each of which I
had aspirated a drop of must from bits of crushed grapes.
I broke the tapered point of many of them before the
Academy, and in all by a sharp hissing, which was heard
at a distance, the fermentation of the drop of liquid
within was made evident. M. Frémy was present and
kept silent." ¹.

It must be said in commendation of Frémy that he
did not cherish any ill will because of these thumps,
feeling, confusedly at first but more and more clearly
later, that his opponent was right. He loved the truth,
although he was not always very prompt to recognize it,
and when it was necessary to have a treatise written on
the ferments and fermentations for the Encyclopedia,
the publication of which he directed some years later, he
went for this purpose not to one of his own pupils, but
to one of Pasteur's. ²
No one could terminate a polemic
more gallantly!

This discussion, nevertheless, did not remain sterile.
There were no sterile discussions with Pasteur, because
he always resorted to experiment to combat the argu-
ments opposed to him. He thus found himself drawn
into diverse fields, which he would never have approached
of his own accord, and, as he had perspicacity, he did not
fail to make discoveries therein. Thus it is that he de-
rived from his controversy with Frémy a multitude of
curious ideas on the distribution of germs in the air,
and germs of yeast on the skins of the grape--ideas
which he utilized much later, and which we shall en.
counter again.

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