How frequently has it happened that the first years in the life of a genius have been employed in labour quite different from that to which they should have been directed. Such a state of affairs the more often occurs when the sense of duty has been strong enough to overcome temporarily the inclination to pursue the natural bent. In the case of Millet, however, the early years which he devoted to the farm and its pursuits were by no means wasted. It is on record that he became very proficient in the various duties in which he was engaged, but at the same time we can be quite sure that his extraordinary faculties of observation were constantly being brought into play, and the fruits of his observations are to be seen in the pictures of his mature period.

A considerable portion of his spare time was taken up with drawing, not only the persons and objects he found around him, but also subjects suggested to him by the books he was in the habit of reading. His family, so far from throwing any obstacles in his way, encouraged him. In fact it was his father who took him first to Cherbourg in order to show a painter of that town, named Mouchel, the early products of his son’s genius. The decision at which Millet pÈre had arrived was prompted by a drawing in charcoal of an old peasant walking along the road, which had struck him forcibly as being a work of extraordinary merit. It says much for Mouchel’s breadth of mind that he was equally impressed with the drawings. A man who had been brought up in the school of David, and who had lived in one of the most reactionary periods of French art, was hardly to be expected to take kindly to a style so diametrically opposed to all the traditions into which he himself had been inculcated; certainly the young Millet, who had now arrived at the age of eighteen, had not developed the extraordinary freedom which his works of ten years later demonstrate. But there was sufficient originality even in his early drawings to call forth condemnation from a man who had been so saturated with the teaching of David.

He prevailed upon Millet to leave his son with him, and set him to work to copy many well-known works of art which he brought before his pupil by means of engravings. Two months were spent in this way when news reached Millet that his father had been seized with sudden illness, and he was obliged in the circumstances to return to GrÉville. He arrived to find the old man unconscious, and very shortly afterwards he died.

This misfortune awoke in Millet a sense of duty which compelled him to desert his studies in Cherbourg and superintend the management of the farm. For some time he devoted himself entirely to his new duties, but the struggle betwixt duty and genius continued; he gave himself to his work with all the energy at his disposal, but his thoughts were ever wandering to his art.

Added to his own inclinations, his grandmother, who perceived his extraordinary gifts, strongly persuaded him to devote his attention entirely to art, and consequently after some little time he decided to return to Cherbourg. Here he entered the studio of M. Langlois, an artist whose reputation in the town was considerable. Again in this worthy man he came in contact with a painter who had been brought up entirely under classical influence. Langlois, who had in his early days been a pupil of Gros, had absorbed the classical tradition to such an extent as to be incapable of appreciating any other style. He appears to have endeavoured to mould Millet in his own method rather than develop the latent genius which the latter possessed. The incompatibility of these two men speedily caused the younger to strike out in his own way. He saw more good in frequenting the museums and making copies of such works as appealed to him than in listening to the advice of his teacher. All this occurred, however, without any breach of friendship occurring. On the contrary, Langlois, after perceiving the futility of inducing his pupil to follow in his footsteps, did all he could to advance his interests.

By means of his influence some of Millet’s drawings were brought before the Municipal Council, and Langlois suggested that Millet should be sent to Paris in order to further his development, and that the Council should set aside a modest pension to meet his requirements in that city. The discussion appears to have been very prolonged, and upon the question being put to a vote it was only carried by means of the casting vote of the mayor. Four hundred francs was at first allotted to him in this way, which was further increased shortly afterwards to six hundred. Such encouragement, meagre though it was, was sufficient to give him a foothold in the metropolis. He left Cherbourg in January 1837, on a cold and raw day, the snow falling heavily throughout the entire journey, and arrived in Paris in a very disheartened condition. The miserable weather, coupled with the long journey in which he had had time to think of the small sum which lay between him and starvation, going to a city which he had never seen before, had all served to work upon his nerves, and he entered the great city sick at heart and very despondent.

One of the first visits he made after he was somewhat settled down in Paris was to the Louvre. Here he was brought into contact for the first time with many masters, who were to mould his yet plastic temperament into the form which enabled him to give to the world, in later years, so many masterpieces. As I have said before, it was Mantegna who first captivated him, and the influence of the mighty Paduan was never finally to be shaken off. Michel Angelo awed him with his sublimity; his classical severity tempered with intense humanism, his masculine strength, were bound to have their effect upon so serious a character as Millet. Strange as it may seem to those who are but superficially acquainted with his art, and are only too apt to judge him by the influence he has had upon modern French painting, he was fascinated with the antique. The traditions of Phidias and Praxiteles, in the form in which they had been transmitted through the greatest minds of the Renaissance, were ever the factors which guided him throughout his career. It was this same spirit which impelled his fervid admiration for Nicolas Poussin, a master who to-day is sadly underrated and but little understood. It was the mysteries of line, the wonders of pose and composition rather than the magic of colour which appealed to him. He had a profound admiration for the glowing canvases of Titian and Rubens, but he could never overlook entirely their defects of drawing or, in the case of Rubens, the tendency to vulgarity. From his remarks in after years it would appear that he was baffled with the mysticisms of Velazquez and Rembrandt; pure painting itself could never hold him. He needed to grasp the message which lay behind it before he felt fully taken into the confidence of the painter; and as the minds of the Dutchman and the Spaniard ran in quite different channels to his own, they spoke with a language he never understood. That he had a perceptive and critically independent mind may be gauged from his enthusiasm for Delacroix, whose work he encountered for the first time at the Luxembourg.

During this period of study he was carefully considering under what master he should place himself. His choice unhappily fell upon Delaroche. To any one acquainted with the work of the latter master, a more unsuitable selection could not have been made. Delaroche and the painters who surrounded him can be appropriately described as constituting the back-wash of the Empire style, which had reached its climax with David. His subjects were always treated with academic reserve. No pyrotechnics were permitted; on the contrary, an everlasting and mistaken striving for finish was encouraged: originality was sternly suppressed. To paint human life as it really was, was too vulgar for any of the painters of this time. They held the public taste enslaved for years. An innovator such as Millet was destined to become found his position almost untenable. The band of critics and painters formed a monopoly which it seemed almost impossible to break down, and it was only after years of bitter and determined struggle that the school of nature finally routed its opponent.

Delaroche doubtlessly found the peasant painter a little rude both in his person and in his ideas about art. He paid but little attention to the young man who had placed himself in his hands, and devoted all his time to students who were more amenable to his influence. A temperament so sensitive as Millet’s was bound to notice this neglect, and consequently after a time he became so discouraged that he ceased to frequent Delaroche’s studio. Another very good reason for this action was the lack of resources to continue his payments. Even during the time he had been with Delaroche he lost no opportunity of turning a few honest francs by painting the portraits of any who could be got to sit to him. Delaroche, however, had a more kindly heart than Millet imagined. He seems to have found out the real distress of the young artist, and to have assisted him pecuniarily in many ways, and there is no doubt that he appreciated the talent of the young Norman much more than he cared to own. Many of his remarks on record would serve to show that Delaroche already felt that his pupil was destined to be one of the leaders of the movement which was finally to overthrow his own style, and doubtlessly felt a great admiration for a man who had the courage and strength to swim against rather than with the current.

PLATE VI.—SPRING
(In the Louvre)

It is probable that Millet wished this picture to be regarded rather as a symbolical representation of Spring, than as an actual study from Nature. The storm that has just passed over has been severe, but of short duration. The sun, breaking through the dense banks of clouds, reveals the splendours of the water-sodden landscape; the apple-trees full of bloom, the verdantly green grass, the young foliage on the distant trees, all reveal the benefit they have received from the downpour.