The Finale! On 18th March 1907 a terribly dramatic event occurred, for both Monsieur and Madame Berthelot died within a few minutes of each other.
On the afternoon of 18th March he attended a meeting of the Académie des Sciences. Returning, he went to his wife's bedside, and devoted himself to cheering her in her suffering. At half-past five he withdrew with his sons to his study. There, with tears in the old man's eyes and trembling voice, he said to them: "My boys, if your mother were to die I could not survive her." His sons returned to their mother's room while the savant set himself resolutely to work in an effort to forget his troubles.
A quarter of an hour later Madame Berthelot's illness came to a sudden crisis, and before her husband could be called she had passed away. The eldest son went to his father's study and informed him of Madame Berthelot's death. The scientist, who was sitting writing, turned round in his chair as his son entered. Hearing the terrible news, he gasped "Mon Dieu!" and fell back in his seat with his hands clasped over his eyes. A minute later his hands fell limply to his side. Berthelot was dead! The great chemist succumbed to heart failure in the eightieth year of his age.[1]
- ↑ Berthelot and his wife were passionately attached to each other, and their married life was one of the most beautiful on record. As Monsieur Leygues said, addressing Berthelot: "Durant ces sombres jours (1870), votre courage fut soutenu par la femme éminente qui est la grace et le charme de votre foyer."
