lacking the character of a stable; the figures wanting the ruggedness of the peasant type; and, above all, the unnaturalness of having the child naked. "Why was it not warmly wrapped in woolen clothes?" His answer to all this was, "This is the beginning of la belle peinture." Millet then turned to another engraving, after Poussin-a man upon his death-bed. "How simple and austere the interior; only that which is necessary, no more; the grief of the family, how abject; the calm movement of the physician as he lays the back of his hand upon the dying man's heart; and the dying man, the care and sorrow in his face, and his hands-perhaps your friend would not call them beautiful, but they show age, toil, and suffering: ah! these are infinitely more beautiful to me than the delicate hands of Titian's peasants."

I have often been told of the magnificent appearance of Millet as a young man

tall,

ally a dark brown, the beard strong and heavy; in his last years they were of an iron gray. His voice was clear and firm, rather low in pitch, and not of that deep bass or sonorous quality one might have expected from so massive a physique.

Aside from sabots, which he always wore in the country, he in no way affected the peasant dress, as has been stated by the English, but wore a soft felt hat, and easy fitting clothes such as you might see anywhere among the farmers or country people of America. It was only on going to Paris that he would put on leather shoes, a black coat, and silk hat-his apparel on these occasions causing much discomfort. To his family he never seemed like himself when dressed for Paris.

I rarely saw Millet out-of-doors,- that is, away from his yard,- but I have vividly impressed upon my memory an evening, the fields,

proud, square, and muscular, of enormous strength. As I knew him he was broad and deep-chested, large and rather portly, always quite erect, his chest well out. Two Americans have reminded me of Millet-George Fuller in the general appearance of his figure, and Walt Whitman in his large and easy manner. His face always impressed me as long, but it was large in every way. All the features were large except the eyes, which at the same time were not small; they must have been very blue when young. The nose was finely cut, with large, dilating nostrils; the mouth firm; the forehead remarkable for its strength-not massive, but in the three-quarters view of the head, where usually the line commences to recede near the middle of the forehead, with him it continued straight to an unusual height. A daguerreotype, now unfortunately effaced, made when he was about thirty-five years of age, without a beard, showed him to have a large chin and strong lower face, expressive of great will and energy. The hair and the beard were origin

and Millet himself striding along with a short cloak or overcoat thrown over his shoulders. It was on the open plain just back of his home. His "Spring," one of his last and finest landscapes, was almost a literal transcript of this spot. Millet, as I saw him from the distance, was as grand a figure as his "Sower" or any of his heroic types. His dress and general appearance, although not really that of a peasant,-but perhaps more his manner, his heavy tread, and his apparent absorption in all that surrounded him,-gave me the feeling that he was a part of nature, as he so well conceived the peasant as a part of the soil which he worked. I was on my way to François's studio, a little farther on at the edge of the forest. It was too dark for work, and we often walked together until the hour for dinner. Pierre, a younger brother of Millet, was spending a few weeks at Barbizon, and to give him employment for his hands Millet made a drawing on a block for him to engrave. Pierre worked on this industriously until it was finished, cutting

a very small piece each day, but that with great care. He put away his work—which he was doing in a small room adjoining François's studio -as I came in and started out for a walk. Soon after Millet himself entered, and examined with interest the engraved portion of the work. The drawing was made with the sharp point of a crayon, directly upon the block; every touch seemed intentional and full of expression. It represented a middle-aged man resting both hands and partly leaning upon the handle of his spade, his bare foot resting upon his sabot. I said to Millet that I admired the drawing exceedingly, and thought it as a picture complete. He replied that he was pleased with it himself, and that he would like to paint the composition,

was more significant of work than one in the act of spading: showing that he had worked and was fatigued, he was resting and would work again. In the same way he preferred to paint the middle-aged man rather than a young or an old one- the middle-aged man showing the effect of toil, his limbs crooked and his body bent, and years of labor still before him. And in type the laborer must show that he was born to labor, that labor is his fit occupation, that his father and father's father were tillers of the soil, and that his children and children's children shall continue the work their fathers have done before them. Millet was always severe on this point-that the artist should paint the typical, and not the exceptional.

making the figure the size of life; and if I remember rightly he said that he intended to do so. He sat down, and, although he at first seemed but little inclined to talk, we no longer thought of our walk. François was always as eager as myself when his father talked of nature or of art. (I always heard him speak more of the former than of the latter.) It was late in September or early in October. Millet spoke of the great beauty of the season, but of its melancholy, and, as I thought, in a tone of depression. He brightened again, however, in returning to the subject of the drawing; he seemed to feel that it possessed the qualities which he insisted upon in art-repose, expressing more than action. The man leaning upon his spade

If Millet's life and work were not a refutation of the charge of his being a revolutionist, the remarks he made that evening in speaking of this picture showed his attitude in regard to the question of labor and the laborer most conclusively.

He spoke of the touching or sympathetic in biblical history, and of subjects he would like to or intended to paint. The theme which most appealed to him in the New Testament was where Joseph and Mary are turned away from the door of the inn before the birth of the Child, and in his description of the scene, as he had conceived it, I saw the picture painted with all the tenderness and pathos of his art.

This I think was my last talk with Millet

THE CRUEL MAN.

It was thought then that the end could only be stayed a few days, but he lingered until the 20th of January. His relatives and friends in Paris even revived their hopes of his recovery. Babcock wrote me the morning of his death, and I hastened to François. It was a bright wintry day. We went out through the garden gate to a seat against the wall where Millet so often had sat, watching the glowing or waning light upon the forest trees, the rolling plain, and the distant hills. François told me of his father's wishes to be buried as a farmer-that no printed announcements should be sent out, but that a neighbor should go from house to house through the village telling of his death and time of burial, according to the custom of the people of the country.

The day of the interment was dark and cold, with a dreary rain. Many uncovered and bowed heads followed him to where he was laid by the side of his well-loved friend Rousseau, in the little cemetery near the church whose roofs and tower have appeared in so many of his works.

II.

DURING Millet's lifetime I saw and became much interested in drawings made at different times for his children and grandchildren. Upon my return to France and Barbizon some years after, I obtained photographs of some of them, which are now reproduced, together with some account of their history and the circumstances under which they were made. Others, obtained by M. Gaston Feuardent from his brother, M. Felix Feuardent, Millet's son-inlaw, give completeness to the illustration of this phase of Millet's work. François once told

me of a drawing by his father, the wood-cutter and his wife in the story of "Le Petit Poucet." The point of the composition was to express that there was nothing in the house to eat. That rare faculty, unique I may say with Millet, of finding the expression of thought by the most simple means, served him in this instance — the man and woman are sitting dejectedly before the cold hearth, and conspicuous upon it is the upturned soup-pot. François recognized in the wood-cutter and his wife his own father and mother. Millet had transcribed the sad experience, that had more than once befallen them, of having no bread for the children. I did not have an opportunity to see the drawing until my return to France.

The history of its production is this: François was studying art, drawing from casts and from nature. Millet in talking with his son one evening told him that he should have more practice in composition, and asked whether, in reading, the images of things and scenes presented themselves to his imagination. François replying that they often did, the father asked him if he recalled anything that had impressed him. This was too sudden for the boy, and he could think of nothing, but asked his father if he had something to propose. Millet replied, "No; but wait, here is something quite simple. You know well 'Le Petit Poucet'; choose a subject in that. Do you want the passage, Nous ne pouvons plus nourrir nos enfants, il faut les perdre dans la forêt?" This subject was decided upon, Millet proposing that they should make it a concour. François began his drawing at once, but Millet sat thoughtfully, his head resting upon his hand, only beginning as his son was finishing. François waited impatiently, until Millet finally took up his sketch and examined it, remarking as he did so, " Pas mal, but it is too much everybody's interpretation of the theme; there is something more forcible [poignant] to be made of it. There," showing his drawing, "is my idea"; and François, seeing this, admitted that he was beaten.

How characteristic this drawing is of Millet. In this story, generally thought of as made to amuse and frighten little children, he found the most melancholy and tragic experience in

THE FRACTIOUS COW.

human life. The drawings of the ogre from the same story were made much earlier, in 1856 or 1857, when François was but six or seven years of age. François teased his father unceasingly for a "portrait" of the ogre, until he finally made it for him one evening in his little copy-book, in which François, in learning to write, had drawn straight lines, "pot-hooks,' etc. François has carefully preserved this book, which is nearly filled with Millet's sketches and drawings. Some of the pages are covered with sketches, ideas for pictures, or figures in movement. "The grafting" is sketched several times on one of the leaves, the whole picture covering no more than a square inch; likewise other pictures which have since become famous. The first drawing of the ogre's head was made with lead-pencil. Millet evidently began with the idea only of amusing the child; but becoming interested himself in what this suggested to him, he recommenced another head, then made a separate study of the mouth and teeth, and finally took up his crayon and drew the final "portrait." While drawing the head he did not cease to talk of the ogre, imitating his voice and expression, growling like an angry beast, showing how he would open his mouth and how he would bite and tear the flesh of little boys, keeping François in a state of intense wonder and alarm.

What has been told of the saints experiencing in their own bodies the suffering of Christ was true with Millet in his art. Working as he did almost without models, he was his own model for everything, feeling deeply, and giving the action with intensity and reality.

At this same time he made other drawings of the ogre―one standing, in full costume, another asleep, with "Le Petit Poucet" pulling off his boots. The family preserve other sketches

THE STUMBLING Horse.

-quite slight, but showing a careful seeking after arrangement of the wood-chopper and his wife taking the children into the forest, with compositions of the children left alone, and in one the parents stealing away leaving their little ones behind them to perish. Nothing could be sadder than the expression of the father and mother leading the children into the woods. Millet in his whole art has depended rather upon the attitude or movement of the figure for expression than upon the face. In this subject, in which so much is expressed, the figures are going away from the observer, and only a few lines indicating the backs are given.

The Red Riding-hood sketches were made between the years 1872 and 1874 for the youngest daughter, who was about the age of little Red Riding-hood at that time, and Millet evidently had his little girl in mind while making the drawings. Like the drawings of the ogre, these also were made one evening at the children's request. François was by this time a man and an artist, and as he too was looking over his father's shoulder, this perhaps will account for some of the drawings being made with less

A FALL FROM A HORSE.

direct reference to the child's understanding. Not that they are less simple, but they are not so clearly defined. The first drawing was slightly indicated with a lead-pencil and then firmly drawn with pen and ink. He wished to express, as he certainly has done, the wondering, stupid little child who had never before been so far away from home. After this drawing Millet went on more hastily with a crayon, telling the story and talking about the little girl's conversation with the wolf, etc., making the sketches to illustrate his verbal story, rather than telling the story to explain the drawings.

The more simple drawings, like the horses and the child feeding the goat, were also the last of the drawings for children. Millet made them in great numbers for his first grandchild, little Antoine. He would take a match that had been lighted, rub off the burned part, and dip in ink the point that was thus formed, using this rather than pen or pencil, because of the