Page "Louis Pasteur" Paragraph 32

Maurice Vallery-Radot, grandson of the brother of the son-in-law of Pasteur and outspoken Catholic, also holds that Pasteur fundamentally remained Catholic.

According to both Pasteur Vallery-Radot and Maurice Vallery-Radot, the following well-known quotation attributed to Pasteur is apocryphal: " The more I know, the more nearly is my faith that of the Breton peasant.

Could I but know all I would have the faith of a Breton peasant's wife ".

According to Maurice Vallery-Radot, the false quotation appeared for the first time shortly after the death of Pasteur.

However, despite his belief in God, it has been said that his views were that of a freethinker rather than a Catholic, a spiritual more than a religious man.

He was also against mixing science with religion.