being engulfed in the
floods beneath, bore marks of his handiwork. Small wonder, then, that
this rude people should engender the painter who has best expressed the
intimate relation between the man of the fields and his ally and foe,
the land which he subjugates, and which in turn enslaves him. The
inherent, almost savage, independence of the peasant had kept him freer
and of a nobler type than the English yokel even in the time before the
Revolution, and in the little hamlet where Millet was born, the great
upheaval had meant but little. Remote from the capital, cultivating land
which but for their efforts would have been abandoned as worthless,
every man was a land-owner in a small degree, and the patrimony of
Millet sufficed for a numerous family of which he was the eldest son.
Sufficed, that is, for a Spartan subsistence, made up of unrelaxing
toil, with few or no comforts, save those of a spiritual nature which
came in the guise of religion.

[Illustration: PEASANT REPOSING. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS
MILLET, EXHIBITED IN THE SALON OF 1863.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. This picture, popularly
known as "The man with the hoe," was the cause of much discussion at the
time of its exhibition. Millet was accused of socialism; of inciting the
peasants to revolt; and from his quiet retreat in the country, he
defended himself in a letter to his friend Sensier as follows: "I see
very clearly the aureole encircling the head of the daisy, and the sun
which glows beyond, far, far over the country-side, its glory in the
skies; I see, not less clearly, the smoking plough-horses in the plain,
and in a rocky corner a man bent with labor, who groans as he works, or
who for an instant tries to straighten himself to catch his breath. The
drama is enveloped in splendor. This is not of my creation; the
expression, 'the cry of the earth,' was invented long ago."]

Millet was reared by his grandmother, such being the custom of the
country; the younger women being occupied in the service of the
mastering earth, and the elders, no longer able to go afield, bringing
up the children born to their children, who in turn replaced their
parents in the never-ending struggle. This grandmother, Louise Jumelin,
widow of Nicolas Millet, was a woman of great force of character, and
extremely devout. The most ordinary occupation of the day was made the
subject not of uttered prayer, for that would have entailed suspension
o