We know that on one or two occasions he returned to Gruchy. Once or twice he had urgent business which took him back, but sometimes he went with no other purpose than to renew acquaintance with the scenes of yore.
Little Jean François was his grandmother’s favourite. It was she who taught him the names of things which surrounded him, and perhaps directed his thoughts in the channels to which they were finally to be devoted. Her brother Charles, who formed one of the family, used to take him for walks, telling him stories on the way. Millet was devotedly attached to this old man, and when at the age of seven years he lost him, the gap in his life thus left made an impression upon his memory never to be effaced.
Five years afterwards he was placed in the hands of the vicar for the purpose of preparing him for his first communion. The good man seems to have been taken with the child; he found him so attentive to all natural phenomenon which was passing around him and intelligent in an unusual degree. He quickly learnt a considerable amount of Latin, which introduced him to the great classics. Unfortunately for Millet, the vicar accepted an offer of transference to a better parish in the vicinity. The boy had made such progress with his master that it was decided that he should go with him to his new abode. He was, however, so missed in his own home, that when he came back for his first holidays it was decided that he should not return.
He now gave serious attention to the agricultural pursuits of his father. He threw himself heartily into the work of the farm, and assisted in the work of sowing and harvesting, of pruning and thrashing according to the season. His spare time was occupied in reading with avidity various masterpieces of literature. The authors he found at hand were such as Fénélon and Bossuet, but he developed a decided preference, which lasted till the end of his life, for Virgil and the Bible.
It was at this time that his taste for art began to be developed. He drew the objects he found around him, and soon acquired sufficient confidence in his skill to execute a large drawing representing two shepherds keeping guard over their sheep. These first efforts date from about his seventeenth year, and foretell the advent of the style in which he was later to become pre-eminent.
PLATE V.—THE STRAW-BINDERS
(In the Louvre)
The wonderful capacity of Millet for portraying action is demonstrated to the full in this canvas. Hard, unremitting toil is the theme Millet has wished to bring before us. The heat is intense, but the work goes on with unrelaxing vigour. The masculine energy of the two bending figures are in striking contrast with the figure of the young girl on the left of the picture. The artist shows that he was quite capable of infusing charm into his peasant studies as well as bringing the brutalising aspect of their labour before the spectator.