Jacques Lucien Monod: 1910-1976

Abstract

This chapter talks about Jacques Monod, who became Director of the Pasteur Institute in April 1971. It talks about the outer and inner man. Shortly after his arrival in Lwoff’s attic, Jacques Monod had collaborated with Elie Wollman in a study of the effect of phage infection on β-galactosidase synthesis. The scientists, technicians, and secretaries who worked with him could always count on his sympathy, advice, and support; in return, he received an unreserved loyalty and devotion from nearly all of them. If Jacques Monod’s faults have been evoked here, that is because one cannot write other than honestly about such a man. At the risk of eliciting sniggers from readers for whom the very notion of the hero is a medieval anachronism, it must be said that he was of heroic stature. The author hopes that this is evident from the preceding account of his life. One common French quality which Monod did not share was the Latin brand of sentimentality. Desperately searching as Director for solutions to the problems ofthe Institute, he hit on the notion of rebuilding it on the suburban campus at Garches, financing the operation by the sale of the very valuable land which it occupies in Paris.