acquired a somewhat remarkable mental cultivation, read much and thought deeply. His father, Jean Louis Millet, a tall, slight man, had neither the appearance nor the limitations of the average rustic of his time. He was a man of some refinement both in his appearance and tastes; with dark eyes, rather long brown hair, and shapely hands. He, too, had a fine voice, was fond of music, and trained the village choir of Greville until it became noted in the neighbourhood and people came from all the vicinity to hear it sing in the low stone Church which his son was to immortalise in one of the last of his paintings, and before which the son's statue now stands. He also modelled in clay, carved wood, and loved and studied, and taught his eldest son to see and note the trees, birds, plants, and scenes of nature about him. His mother, though a hard-working woman in house and field, was one who possessed some education and was noted for her neat and cleanly appearance. Then, too, his grandmother, who made her eldest grandson her special property and took care of him while his parents worked in the field or tended their sheep and cattle, taught him much, as Burns's maternal relative taught him, of the wisdom, sayings, and songs of the countryside.

So Millet grew to manhood amidst scenes and under influences which imparted to him the important truth which he afterwards in a letter thus expressed: It is essential to use the commonplace in order to express the sublime." And as we read these words, how many of the lines of Burns come to mind; some as familiar as these :—

"But mousie, thou art no' thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain ;
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain

And what more offensively" commonplace" than a louse! But one seen upon a Sunday bonnet gave us that "sublime" sermon in little :

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion :

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion !"

As Millet approached manhood it was his father who appreciated his artistic temperament and capacity; encouraged him to draw, praised his sketches of the men and women and the scenes that attracted the boy's pencil; and finally took him to Cherbourg to see old Mouchel, an artist there. They took with them two of the sketches, and found it difficult to persuade Mouchel that the boy, unaided and untaught, had made them. So this artist kept Millet by him for six months, encouraged him to draw whatever he felt tempted to portray; and to study the pictures in the small public gallery at Cherbourg.

Then the boy's father died, when, as the oldest son, he had to go home and, as did Burns, in a measure take charge of the family-the grandmother and the mother and the seven brothers and sisters-as well as of the little farm.

But his work at Cherbourg had attracted the attention of some men of influence, and the Mayor wrote him urging him to return to the city and pursue his artistic studies. This his grandmother determined should be accomplished, and so finally it was, and he went into the studio of the principal painter of the town, Langlois, who had studied in Paris and in Italy. He, like Mouchel, recognised Millet's talent at once, and after some months addressed a petition in behalf of young Millet to the town council of Cherbourg, which resulted, after some delays, in an arrangement between the city and the district, by which six hundred francs a year was promised to Millet for his support while he studied his art in Paris.

So, at the age period of his life. suffered in Paris.

of twenty-two, Millet began the second For twelve years he lived, studied and At the end of two or three years he was

called home and lived some months there and in Cherbourg, trying, often in the most humble way, to make a living with his brush. In Cherbourg he now married a slight, little dressmaker, whose portrait he had painted for a few francs. With her he returned to his life of privation in Paris. Only the first instalment of six hundred francs was paid him by the authorities of Cherbourg. The second year the sum dwindled to three hundred, and then ceased altogether; so that the young artist was thrown upon his own resources for a living for himself and his young wife, whose frail constitution, gave way until she died. Millet found Paris and his life there and most of the artistic development of the time and place thoroughly distasteful. The Salon and the Beaux-Arts were dominated by artificial and conventional ideals. Millet, moved, indeed dominated, by an almost passionate sincerity and the impulse to seek for essential truth, was filled with distaste for the classical conventions and theatrical display of the painters who for the time represented such artistic taste as found official and public expression in Paris.

On another visit home he had married a young peasant girl, Catherine Lemaire, and as children came to them fast, he was compelled to struggle, at times desperately, for the barest necessaries of life. The work which he was compelled to do, and in doing which he gradually obtained some renown, was work of necessity rather than of his choice. He painted much in the nude and did work both in paint and pastel of a mythological and classical sort such as he or his friends could sell at some price to the dealers.

Though Millet was essentially a countryfied young man, shy in disposition, hesitating in speech and awkward in manner, he had a personality that was in many respects attractive, and a fine depth of character that had but to be known to be admired; so that in the atelier of Delaroche and among the artists of Paris he made warm friends, and kept them; but, in the language of Robert Louis Stevenson, without capitulation." Among these was the Spanish painter Dias, who afterwards befriended him

much, and Rousseau, and Jacque, and finally during the latter years of his stay in Paris, Alfred Sensier, his future biographer, his ever faithful and useful friend. By profession a lawyer, Sensier had been appointed to some post in the Museum of the Louvre, which brought him into contact with many of the painters of his day. He was strongly attracted to Millet, visited him much in his studio, loved to watch him at his work, and in many ways made himself liked by and exceedingly useful to the artist, who seems to have possessed even less of worldly wisdom or the money-getting faculty than Burns. Sensier did much to promote Millet among his friends, and finally, when one of his more characteristic pictures was exhibited in the Revolutionary Exhibition in 1848, the picture was purchased, largely through the influence of Sensier, by M. Rollin, the Minister of the Interior. Through Rollin, the same year, Millet obtained a commission from the new Republic for a picture; the subject to be of his own choosing, and the price to be eighteen hundred francs, of which sum 700 francs were paid at once. After several false starts Millet finally began and finished the picture now known as "The Haymakers"; and in April, 1849, he received the other instalment of eleven hundred francs for the canvas.

During the years of his life there the distaste of Millet for Paris had steadily grown, and with it the longing to get once more into the country. This desire was shared by his friend Jacque; so when the eleven hundred francs was paid to him he hurried to Jacque, and though Millet was, as he seems always to have been, considerably in debt, he offered to lend his friend half of his windfall provided he would join him in leaving Paris. Jacque readily accepted this proposal, and with their families they hied them away, first to Fontainebleau and then, after a few days, through the forest to the village of Barbizonwhich they and their like were destined to make a household word throughout the artistic world.

a name

With Barbizon, the third, final and great period in

the life of Millet began; and the happiest too in spite of continued harassment by debt and poverty, and by what perhaps is best described by the homely phrase "poor management.'

In a little while Millet had rented the curious cottage in which the next twenty-five years of his life were passed, in which he died, and which may still be seen in something of the same condition in which he left it, in the quaint French hamlet just beyond the great forest of Fontainebleau. Two rooms eight feet high and twelve feet square accommodated himself, his wife and growing family; made habitable, cheerful and homely by the wise and devoted wife. Then came, upon a somewhat lower level, a stable room with a door and a single window, used by Millet for the next five or six years as his studio. Along the side of this humble dwelling was a rather narrow paved court, enclosed by a wall, and in this court stood a well as it is to-day; and back of the house was a small orchard, and beyond was the meadow skirting the forest. This scene appeared in many of Millet's subsequent pictures, and may be seen in "La Becque"; than which he seldom painted a better or more characteristic one.

Soon after his removal to Barbizon Millet wrote a letter to Sensier, a part of which reveals the artist in a way that the world has learned to recognise as near the truth about him. He tells of three pictures he is about to send his friend for sale, of which he gives the titles as; "A Woman Crushing Flax," "A Peasant and his Wife going to Work in the Fields," and "Gatherers of Wood in the Forest," and he says:

"As you will see by the titles of the pictures there are neither nude women nor mythological subjects among them. I mean to devote myself to other subjects, not that I hold that sort of thing to be forbidden, but that I do not wish to feel myself compelled to paint them.

But to tell the truth, peasant subjects suit my nature best; for I must confess, at the risk of your taking me to be a Socialist, that the human side is what touches me