*

confrères of the neighboring communes very indignant; they went so far as to write about it to the bishop of Coutances. I have found among some old papers the rough draft of the letter he addressed to the bishop in justification, and in which he said that he lived with his brother who was a laborer, that in the commune there were very poor children who would have been deprived of every sort of instruction, that pity had decided him to teach them what he could, and he begged the bishop in the name of charity not to prevent him from teaching these poor little ones to read. I think I have heard that the bishop finally consented to let him continue. Very magnanimous, to be sure! * When he died I was about seven years old, and it is curious to realize how deep are the impressions of an early age, and what an indelible mark they leave upon the character. My childish mind was filled with stories of ghosts and all sorts of supernatural things. To this day I enjoy them, but whether I believe them or not I cannot say. The day that my great-uncle was buried, I heard them speaking in a mysterious way about the way he should be buried. They said that at the head, on the coffin, must be laid some big stones covered with bundles of hay; their instrument got embarrassed in the straw, and then broke on the stones, which made it impossible for them to hook the head and draw the body out of the grave. Afterward I knew what this mysterious language meant, but from the time of the burial, several neighbors, with the servant of the house, who all had hot cider to drink, passed the night, armed with guns and scythes, watching the grave. This guard was continued for about a month. After that they said there was no more danger. This was the

reason: some men were said to make a profession of digging up bodies for doctors. They knew vic a person died in a commune, and they came immed ately at night to steal it. Their way of doing w to take a long screw and work through the care and the coffin, catching the head of the dead man with a lever they drew the body out of the grave without disturbing the earth. They had been met leading the dead man, covered with a cloak, holding him under the arms and talking to him as if h were a drunken man, shaking him and telling him to stand up. Others were seen with the body behind them on horseback, the arms held round the waist of the rider, and always covered with a great cloak, but the feet of the body were seen below the cloak.

"Some months before the death of my greatuncle I had been sent to school, and I remember well the day he died the maid-servant was sent to bring me home, so that I should not be seen playing in the road under such solemn circumstances. Before sending me to school I had, doubtless, at home learnt my letters and to spell, as the other chil dren thought me very clever. Heaven knows what they called clever. My introduction to the schoo! was for the afternoon class. When I arrived in the court-yard where the children were playing, the first thing I did was to fight. The bigger children who brought me were proud of bringing to school a child of six and a half who already knew his letters, and besides I was large of my age, and so strong that they assured me that there was not one of my age or even of seven who could beat me. There was none there less than seven, and as they were all anxious to make sure of the matter, they

brought up a boy who was considered one of the strongest, to make us fight. It must be confessed that we had no very powerful reasons for not liking each other, and perhaps the combat was rather lukewarm. But they had a way of interesting the honor of the parties concerned. They took a chip, and putting it on the shoulder of one, said to the other, 'I bet you don't dare knock that chip off!' If you did not want to seem a coward you knocked it off. The other, of course, could not endure such an insult. So the battle was in earnest. The big ones excited those whose side they had taken, and the fighters were not separated. One must conquer. I turned out the stronger and covered myself with glory. Those who were for me were very proud, and said: 'Millet is only six and a half, and he has beaten a boy more than seven years old."

When twelve years old, François Millet went to be confirmed at the church of Gréville. He could not learn anything by heart, but a young vicar found his answers so full of good sense that he asked him if he did not want to learn Latin.

"With Latin, my boy, you can become a priest or a doctor."

"No," said the child; "I don't wish to be either; I wish to stay with my parents." “Come, all the same," said the vicar; "you will learn.”

So the child went to the parsonage with several little companions. He translated the Epitome Historia Sacræ and the Selecta e Profanis. Virgil came under his eyes,although translated by the Abbé Desfontaines, this book, half Latin, half French, charmed him so much that he could not

stop reading it. The Bucolics and Georgics captivated his mind. At the words of Virgil,

"It is the hour when the great shadows descend toward the plain,"

the child felt filled with emotion; the book revealed to him his own surroundings-the life in which he was growing up. Some time after, the vicar, l'Abbé Herpent, was sent to the curacy of Heauville, a village a few miles from Gréville. It was decided that the little François should go with the Abbé to continue his instruction. After four or five months with the Abbé Herpent, he begged his grandmother so hard not to be made to leave home again, that it was decided that he should not go. A new vicar had come to the village, the Abbé Jean Lebrisseux, who was willing to continue the child's instruction. The good man liked to make him talk about his first impressions, and often took him with him to see the Curé of Gréville, a gentle and sickly man, who encouraged the child in his confidences. The school-boy told him his inno

cent love of nature, his wonder at the clouds and their movements, his thoughts of the depth of the sky, and the dangers of the ocean, his reading of the Bible and Virgil, and the poor Curé would say:

"Ah, poor child, you have a heart that will give you trouble one of these days; you don't know how much you will have to suffer!"

The schooling of Millet, begun by the good vicar, Jean Lebrisseux, was often interrupted by field-work. He did not go any further than the Appendix de Diis et Heroibus Poeticis of P. Jouvency, and had to give up Virgil. He was soon obliged to be a serious help to his father, and to devote all his time to the rough farm-work. He was the eldest of the sons, and in this lay a duty which François accepted without regret. He then began to work beside his father and "hands," to mow, make hay, bind the sheaves, thresh, winnow, spread manure, plow, sow, in a word, all the work which makes the daily life of the peasant. So he and mother in the hardest labor, his only spent years, the companion of his father amusement the gatherings of the family.

Millet devoured hungrily the books of the home library, the "Lives of the Saints," the "Confessions of St. Augustine," "St. Francis of Sales," "St. Jerome," especially his letters, which he liked to re-read all his life, and the religious philosophers of PortVirgil and the Bible, he re-read them, always Royal, and Bossuet, and Fénélon. As to in Latin, and was so familiar with their language that in his manhood I have never seen a more eloquent translator of these two books. He was not, therefore, as has been said, an ignorant peasant up to the time of his coming to Paris. On the contrary, his education was rapid, and rather by eye and reason than by grammar. As a child he wrote well, and when he reached Cherbourg he was already an educated man, full of reading, and one who did not confuse unhealthy literature with that which could be of use to him.

At his father's house, in the midst of his work, the vague idea of art began to take form in his mind. Some old engravings in the Bible gave him the desire to imitate them, and every day, at the noonday rest, alone in a room in the house, while his father slept, he studied the perspective of the landscapes before him. He drew the garden, the stables, the fields with the sea for horizon, and often the animals which passed. His father, more watchful than asleep, did

not say a word, and sometimes got up softly to peep at what François was doing.

The sea was for François Millet the occasion both of study and of profound feeling. He wished to reproduce its greatness and terror. A recollection of the ocean storms

remained all his life with him. I will give one of his many impressions, which tells in his simple and pathetic way the horrors of a disaster which befell his village:

"It was All Saints' day, in the morning we saw that the sea was very rough, and every one said there would be trouble; all the parish was in church; in the middle of mass we saw a man come in dripping wet, an old sailor, well known for his bravery. He immediately said that as he came along shore he saw several ships which, driven by a fearful wind, would certainly shipwreck on the coast. We must go to their assistance,' said he, louder, and I have come to say to all who are willing that we have only just

time to put to sea to try and help them.' About fifty men offered themselves, and, without speaking, followed the old sailor. We got to the shore by going down the cliff, and there we soon saw a terrible sight, several vessels, one behind the other, driving at a frightful speed against the rocks.

"Our men put their boats to sea, but they had

hardly made ten strokes when one boat filled with

water and sunk, the second was overturned with the breakers, and the third thrown up on shore. Happily no one was drowned, and all reached the shore. It was easy to see that our boats would be no use to the poor people on the ships.

"Meantime the vessels came nearer, and were only a few fathoms from our black clifis, which were covered with cormorants. The first, whose masts were gone. came like a great mass. Every one on shore saw it coming, no one dared speak. It seemed to me, a child, as if death was playing with a handful of men, whom it intended to crush and drown. An immense wave lifted itself like an angry mountain, and wrapping the vessel brought her near, and a still higher one threw her upon a rock level with