[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 of her ceaseless activity, but of spiritual example tersely expressed, which fell upon the fruitful soil of Millet’s young imagination, and left such a lasting impression that to the end of his life his natural expression was almost Biblical in character of language.

Another formative influence of this young life was that of a granduncle, Charles Millet, a priest who, driven from his church by the Revolution, had returned to his native village and taken up the simple life of his people, without, however, abandoning his vocation.  He was to be seen behind his plough, his priest’s robe gathered up about his loins, his breviary in one hand, following the furrow up and down the undulating fields which ran to the cliffs.

[Illustration:  The milk-Carrier.  From A painting by Jean Francois Millet.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co.  Probably commenced at Cherbourg, where Millet took refuge with his family during the Franco-Prussian War, as Sensier mentions it on Millet’s return.  This picture, or a replica of it (Millet was fond of repeating his subjects, with slight changes in each case), was in his studio in 1873, and called forth the remark quoted in the text, about the women in his country.]