Hard as he worked, little Francois’ time was not entirely taken up with attending to the fields or garden.  He was a studious boy, and learned not only to read and write in French, but also to try some higher flights, rare indeed for a lad of his position.  His family possessed remarkable qualities as French peasants go; and one of his great-uncles, a man of admirable strength of character, a priest in the days of the great Revolution, had braved the godless republicans of his time, and though deprived of his cure, and compelled to labour for his livelihood in the fields, had yet guided the plough in his priestly garments.  His grandmother first taught him his letters; and when she had instructed him to the length of reading any French book that was put before him, the village priest took him in hand.  In France, the priest comes often from the peasant class, and remains in social position a member of that class as long as he lives.  But he always possesses a fair knowledge of Latin, the language in which all his religious services are conducted; and this knowledge serves as a key to much that his unlearned parishioners could never dream of knowing.  Young Millet’s parish priest taught him as much Latin as he knew himself; and so the boy was not only able to read the Bible in the Latin or Vulgate translation, but also to make acquaintance with the works of Virgil and several others of the great Roman poets.  He read, too, the beautiful “Confessions” of St. Augustine, and the “Lives of the Saints,” which he found in his father’s scanty library, as well as the works of the great French preachers, Bossuet and Fenelon.  Such early acquaintance with these and many other masterpieces of higher literature, we may be sure, helped greatly to mould the lad’s mind into that grand and sober shape which it finally acquired.

Jean Francois’ love of art was first aroused by the pictures in an old illustrated Bible which belonged to his father, and which he was permitted to look at on Sundays and festivals.  The child admired these pictures immensely, and asked leave to be permitted to copy them.  The only time he could find for the purpose, however, was that of the mid-day rest or siesta.  It is the custom in France, as in Southern Europe generally, for labourers to cease from work for an hour or so in the middle of the day; and during this “tired man’s holiday,” young Millet, instead of resting, used to take out his pencil and paper, and try his hand at reproducing the pictures in the big Bible.  His father was not without an undeveloped taste for art.  “See,” he would say, looking into some beautiful combe or glen on the hillside—­“see that little cottage half buried in the trees; how beautiful it is!  I think it ought to be drawn so—­;” and then he would make a rough sketch of it on some scrap of paper.  At times he would model things with a bit of clay, or cut the outline of a flower or an animal with his knife on a flat piece of wood.  This unexercised talent Francois inherited in a still greater degree.  As time went on, he progressed to making little drawings on his own account; and we may be sure the priest and all the good wives of Gruchy had quite settled in their own minds before long that Jean Francois Millet’s hands would be able in time to paint quite a beautiful altar-piece for the village church.