Louis Pasteur was born
on December 27, 1822
years, and not particularly academic, as his interests were fishing and sketching. His pastels and portraits of his parents and friends, made when he was 15, were later kept in the museum of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In 1838, he left for Paris to join the Institution Barbet, but became homesick and returned in November. In 1839, he entered the Collège Royal de Besançon and earned his baccalauréat (BA) degree in 1840. He was appointed teaching assistant at the Besançon college while continuing a degree science course with special mathematics. He failed his first examination in 1841. He managed to pass the baccalauréat scientifique (general science) degree in 1842 from Dijon but with a poor grade in chemistry. After one failed attempt for the entrance test for the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1842, he succeeded in 1844. In 1845 he received the licencié ès sciences (Bachelor of Science) degree. In 1846, he was appointed professor of physics at the Collège de Tournon at Ardèche, but Antoine Jérome Balard (one of the discoverers of the element bromine) wanted him back at the École Normale Supérieure as a graduate assistant (préparateur) for chemistry courses. He joined Balard and simultaneously started his research in crystallography and in 1847, he submitted his two theses, one in chemistry and the other in physics. After serving briefly as professor of physics at the Dijon Lycée in 1848, he became professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, where he met and courted Marie Laurent, daughter of the university's rector in 1849. They were married on May 29, 1849, and together had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood; the other three died of typhoid. These personal tragedies were his motivations for curing infectious diseases.
In 1857, he moved to Paris as the director of scientific studies at the École Normale Supérieure where he took control from 1858 to 1867 and introduced a series of reforms. The examinations became more rigid, which led to better results, greater competition, and increased prestige. He raised the standard of scientific work, leading to two serious student revolts. In 1862, he was appointed professor of geology, physics, and chemistry at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the position which held until his resignation in 1867. In Paris, he established the Pasteur Institute in 1887, in which he was its director for the rest of his life.
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