McClures Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 | Page 4

Paris in
1837. The great city failed to please the country-bred youth, and,
indeed, until the end of his life, Millet disliked Paris. I remember his
saying that, on his visits from Barbizon to the capital, he was happy on
his arrival at the station, but when he arrived at the column of the
Bastille, a few squares within the city, the mal du pays took him by the
throat.
At first he spent all his time in the Louvre, which revealed to him what
the little provincial museum of Cherbourg had but faintly suggested.
Before long, however, he entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, who

was the popular master of the time. There he won the sobriquet of the
"man of the woods," from a savage taciturnity which was his defence 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, 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