e in the
midst of the _atelier_ jokes. He had come to work, and to work he
addressed himself, with but little encouragement from master or
comrades. Strong as a young Hercules, with a dignity which never forsook
him, his studies won at least the success of attention. When a favorite
pupil of the master remonstrated that his men and women were hewed from
stone, Millet replied tranquilly, "I came here because there are Greek
statues and living men and women to study from, not to please you or any
one. Do I preoccupy myself with your figures made of honey and butter?"

Delaroche, won by the strength of the man, at length unbent, and showed
him such favor as a commonplace mind could accord to native superiority.
He advised him to compete for the Prix de Rome, warning him, however,
that whatever might be the merit of his work, he could not take it that
year, as it was arranged that another, approaching the limit of age,
must have it. This revolted the simple nature of Millet, who refused to
compete, and left the school.

A return to Cherbourg, where he married his first wife, who died at the
end of two years; another sojourn in Paris, and a visit home of some
duration; a number of portraits and pictures painted in Cherbourg and
Havre, in which his talent was slowly asserting itself, brings us to
1845, when he remarried. Returning to Paris with his wife, he remained
there until 1849, when he went to Barbizon "for a time," which was
prolonged to twenty-seven years.

In all the years preceding his final return to the country, Millet was
apparently undecided as to the definite character of his work. Out of
place in a city, more or less influenced by his comrades in art, and
forced to follow in a degree the dictation of necessity in the choice of
subject, as his brush was his only resource and his family constantly
increasing, his work of this period is always tentative. In painting it
is luscious in color and firmly drawn and modelled, but it lacks the
perception of truth which, when once released from the bondage of the
city, began to manifest itself in his work. The first indication of the
future Millet is in a picture in the Salon of 1848, "The Winnower,"
which has, in subject at least, much the character of the work which
followed his establishment at Barbizon. For the rest, although the world
is richer in beautiful pictures of charmingly painted nymphs, and of
rustic scenes not altogether devoid of a certain artificiality