In October, 1841, though still combining the functions of master and student, Pasteur resumed his attendance of the classes for special mathematics. But he was constantly thinking of Paris, “Paris, where study is deeper.” One of Chappuis’ comrades, Bertin, whom Pasteur had met during the holidays, had just entered the Ecole Normale at the head of the list after attending in Paris a class of special mathematics.
“If I do not pass this year,” Pasteur wrote to his father on November 7, “I think I should do well to go to Paris for a year. But there is time to think of that and of the means of doing so without spending too much, if the occasion should arise. I see now what great advantage there is in giving two years to mathematics; everything becomes clearer and easier. Of all our class students who tried this year for the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale, not a single one has passed, not even the best of them, a student who had already done one year’s mathematics at Lyons. The master we have now is very good. I feel sure I shall do a great deal this year.”
He was twice second in his class; once he was first in physics. “That gives me hope for later on,” he said. He wrote about another mathematical competition, “If I get a good place it will be well deserved, for this work has given me a pretty bad headache; I always do get one, though, whenever we have a competition.” Then, fearful of alarming his parents, he hastily adds, “But those headaches never last long, and it is only an hour and a half since we left off.”
Anxious to stifle by hard work his growing regrets at not having followed Chappuis to Paris, Pasteur imagined that he might prepare himself for the Ecole Polytechnique as well as for the Ecole Normale. One of his masters, M. Bouché, had led him to hope that he might be successful. “I shall try this year for both schools,” Pasteur wrote to his friend (January 22, 1842). “I do not know whether I am right in deciding to do so. One thing tells me that I am wrong: it is the idea that we might thus be parted; and when I think of that, I firmly believe that I cannot possibly be admitted this year into the Ecole Polytechnique. I feel quite superstitious about it. I have but one pleasure, your letters and those from my family. Oh! do write often, very long letters!”