all third-class; while second medals, first medals, and even the great Medal of Honor, had been awarded to artists who, in comparison to Jacque, were ephemeral nobodies. However, the Paris Exposition of 1889 gave him a tardy vindication by awarding him the Medal of Honor for his etching, "La Bergerie Béarnaise." This plate, the work of the artist's old age, is called by Beraldi in his work, "The Engravers of the Nineteenth Century," une pièce superbe and so it is.

Such a thing as a complete collection of Jacque's etchings and lithographs does not exist in any one place. The master himself has told me that the fullest collection existing is that of Mr. Samuel P. Avery, who bequeathed it to the New York Public Library.

JEA

JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE

EAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET was born in the little village of Gruchy, on the Norman coast, on the 4th of October, 1814. There for generations his family had cultivated their small piece of ground, and there the future artist was brought up in the laborious thrift of the poorer French peasantry.

As his mother could not be spared from her daily labor in the fields, the care of the child fell to the grandmother. Of this devout and excellent woman Millet always cherished the most affectionate remembrance, and to her training he was chiefly indebted for those strong principles of right and morality which he always maintained.

In the intervals of his labor in the fields, the boy received some instruction from the Curé of Gréville. This worthy man encouraged him to study Latin, telling him that through it he could become a doctor or a priest. Millet did learn Latin, but declared that he would be neither priest nor doctor, but would help his father on the farm.

The elder Millet appears to have been an enlightened man. From the first he encouraged his son's propensity to make sketches of the scenes

and persons about him; and when, at the age of eighteen, Millet proposed to adopt the career of an artist, the father replied: "My poor François, I cannot well spare you while your brothers are so young; but we will go together to Cherbourg and show some of your drawings to an artist there, and if he considers that you have real talent, I will consent."

At Cherbourg they showed two drawings to Mouchel, who was a pupil of the school of David. This artist at first refused to believe that the drawings which were shown him could be the unaided work of a peasant-boy; and when at last convinced that they were, he declared that the boy had in him the making of a great artist.

Millet then commenced his art studies at Cherbourg, and while there he also read with avidity all the books he could procure. Besides the French authors he was passionately fond of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Goethe, and the American, Fenimore Cooper. He removed to Paris at the age of twenty-three, and although he was then a simple peasant, he was far from being an ignorant one. His letters show that Millet was a man of intellect and refinement, and in after life it was his habit to read his Bible and his Virgil in the Latin.

The artist has left a record of his first experiences in the great city. His main desire was to visit the pictures in the Louvre, but he was too shy to inquire his way, and wandered about until he came upon the building by chance.

He was chiefly impressed by the works of Mantegna, Michael Angelo, and Nicolas Poussin; but the artificial prettiness of Watteau and Boucher gave him no pleasure, and he had a feeling that the performing puppets in their pictures should be shut up in a box after their masquerade was over.

He became a pupil of Paul Delaroche, but could never adopt the academic formality of that popular painter.

Although his resources in Paris were very slender, Millet contrived to make several visits to the beloved homestead in Normandy. During one of these visits in 1841, he painted several portraits (some sign-boards also), and among these portraits that of the young girl of Cherbourg whom he married.

Millet was then a large, strong, handsome young man of twenty-seven. His first wife died within three years, and in 1845 he married the woman who became the mother of his large family, and who remained - until his death, thirty years afterward - his devoted companion in his few joys and many sorrows.

Thus far fortune had, in a moderate way, smiled on the artist, but now his troubles began to come thick and fast; and they only ended with his life. Returning to Paris in 1845, Millet and his wife endured years of dire privation. In the winter of 1848 a friend found them in a room without fire, and learned that for two days they had had nothing to eat. Several pictures

"This beautiful plate was intended for publication by the Société des Aquafortistes (Cadart), but the publisher having asked Millet to withdraw the plate, the artist ceased to be a member of the Société (1862)."- Alfred Lebrun.