, and in
at least one masterly mythological picture of Oedipus rescued from the
tree, through Millet's activity in these years, yet his work, had it
continued on this plane, would have lacked the high significance which
the next twenty-five years were to show.

Having endeavored to make clear the source from which Millet came, and
indicated the formative influences of his early life, I may permit
myself (as I warned my readers I should do) to return to my
recollections of Barbizon in 1873, and the glimpses of Millet which my
sojourn there in that and the following year afforded me.

Barbizon lies on a plain, more vast in the impression which it makes on
the eye than in actual area, and the village consists of one long
street, which commences at a group of farm buildings of some importance,
and ends in the forest of Fontainebleau. About midway down this street,
on the way to the forest, Millet's home stood, on the right of the road.
The house, of two low stories, had its gable to the street, and on the
first floor, with the window breast high from the ground, was the
dining-room. Here, in pleasant weather, with the window wide open, sat
Millet at the head of his patriarchal table, his children, of whom there
were nine, about him; his good wife, their days of acute misery past,
smiling contentedly on her brood, which, if I remember rightly, already
counted a grandchild or more: as pleasant a sight as one could readily
see. Later, in the autumn evenings, a lamplit replica of the same
picture presented itself. Or, if the dinner was cleared away, one would
see Madame Millet busy with her needle, the children at their lessons,
and the painter, whom even then tradition painted a sad and cheerless
misanthrope, contentedly playing at dominoes with one of the children,
or his honest Norman face wreathed in smiles as the conversation took an
amusing turn. This, it is true, was when the master of the house was
free from his terrible enemy, the headache, which laid him low so often,
and which in these days became more and more frequent.

[Illustration: FIRST STEPS. FROM A PASTEL BY JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. As Sensier remarks,
Millet, with nine children, had abundant opportunity to study them. This
charming drawing was one of the collection of Millet's pastels formed by
M. Gavet, which was unfortunately dispersed by auction soon after the
artist's death.]

The house, to resume the d