But Millet was the last man on earth to sit down quietly with his hands folded, waiting for something or other to turn up.  At Cherbourg, he set to work once more, no doubt painting more “pot-boilers” for the respectable shopkeepers of the neighbourhood—­ complacent portraits, perhaps, of a stout gentleman with a large watch-chain fully displayed, and of a stout lady in a black silk dress and with a vacant smile; and by hook or by crook he managed to scrape together a few hundred francs, with which once more he might return to Paris.  But before he did so, he married again, this time more wisely.  His wife, Catharine Lemaire, was a brave and good woman, who knew how to appreciate her husband, and to second him well in all his further struggles and endeavours.  They went for a while to Havre, where Millet, in despair of getting better work, and not ashamed of doing anything honest to pay his way, actually took to painting sign-boards.  In this way he saved money enough to make a fresh start in Paris.  There, he continued his hard battle against the taste of the time; for French art was then dominated by the influence of men like Delaroche, or like Delacroix and Horace Vernet, who had accustomed the public to pictures of a very lofty, a very romantic, or a very fiery sort; and there were few indeed who cared for stern and sympathetic delineations of the French peasant’s unlovely life of unremitting toil, such as Millet loved to set before them.  Yet, in spite of discouragement, he did well to follow out this inner prompting of his own soul; for in that direction he could do his best work—­and the best work is always the best worth doing in the long run.  There are some minds, of which Franklin’s is a good type, so versatile and so shifty that they can turn with advantage to any opening that chances to offer, no matter in what direction; and such minds do right in seizing every opportunity, wherever it occurs.  But there are other minds, of which Gibson and Millet are excellent examples, naturally restricted to certain definite lines of thought or work; and such minds do right in persistently following up their own native talent, and refusing to be led aside by circumstances into any less natural or less promising channel.

While living in Paris at this time, Millet painted several of his favourite peasant pictures, amongst others “The Workman’s Monday,” which is a sort of parallel in painting to Burns’s “Cotter’s Saturday Night” in poetry.  Indeed, there is a great deal in Millet which strongly reminds one at every step of Burns.  Both were born of the agricultural labouring class; both remained peasants at heart, in feelings and sympathies, all their lives long; neither was ashamed of his origin, even in the days of his greatest fame; painter and poet alike loved best to choose their themes from the simple life of the poor whose trials and hardships they knew so well by bitter experience; and in each case they succeeded best in touching the hearts of others when they did not travel outside their own natural range of subjects.  Only (if Scotchmen will allow one to say so) there was in Millet a far deeper vein of moral earnestness than in Burns; he was more profoundly impressed by the dignity and nobility of labour; in his tender sympathy there was a touch of solemn grandeur which was wanting in the too genial and easy-going Ayrshire ploughman.