themselves there), there were, strange as it may seem, few who cared for
Millet's work, and many who knew little or nothing of it. The prejudices
of the average art student are many and indurated. His horizon is apt to
be bounded by his master's work or the last Salon success, and as Millet
had no pupils, and had ceased to exhibit at the Salon, he was little
known to most of the youths who, as I look back, must have made Barbizon
a most undesirable place for a quiet family to live in. An accident
which made me acquainted with Millet's eldest son, a painter of talent,
seemed for a time to bring me no nearer to knowing the father until one
day some remark of mine which showed at least a sincere admiration for
his work made the son suggest that I should come and see a recently
completed picture.

If the crowd of young painters who frequented the village were
indifferent to Millet, such was not the case with people from other
places. The "personally conducted" were then newly invented, and I have
seen a wagon load of tourists, who had been driven to different points
in the forest, draw up before Millet's modest door and express
indignation in a variety of languages when they were refused admittance.
There were many in those days who tried with little or no excuse to
break in on the work of a man whose working days were already counted,
and who was seldom free from his old enemy _migraine_. I was to
learn this when--I hope after having had the grace to make it plain
that, though I greatly desired to know Millet, I felt no desire to
intrude--the son had arranged for a day when, at last, I was admitted to
the studio.

Millet did not make his appearance at once; and when he came, and the
son had said a few kindly words of presentation, he seemed so evidently
in pain that I managed, in a French which must have been distinguished