originality of the youth's work, Mouchel offered to teach him all that
he knew.

Millet stayed with Mouchel some months. Then his father's death recalled
him home, where his honest spirit prompted him to remain as the eldest
son and head of the family, although his heart was less than ever in the
fields. But this the mother, brought up in the spirit of resignation,
would not allow him to do. "God has made you a painter. His will be
done. Your father, my Jean Louis, has said it was to be, and you must
return to Cherbourg."

Millet returned to Cherbourg, this time to the studio of one Langlois, a
pupil of Gros, who was the principal painter of the little city. But
Langlois, like his first master, Mouchel, kept him at work copying
either his own studies or pictures in the city museum. After a few
months, though, he had the honesty to recognize that his pupil needed
more efficient instruction than he could give him, and in August, 1836,
he addressed a petition to the mayor and common council of the city of
Cherbourg, who took the matter into consideration, and, with the
authorities of the department, voted a sum of one thousand francs--two
hundred dollars--as a yearly allowance to Millet, in order that he might
pursue his studies in Paris. Langlois in his petition asks that he be
permitted to "raise without fear the veil of the future, and to assure
the municipal council a place in the memory of the world for having been
the first to endow their country with one more great name."
Grandiloquent promise has often been made without result; but one must
admire the hard-headed Norman councillors who, representing a little
provincial city which in 1884 had but thirty-six thousand inhabitants,
gave even this modest sum to assure a future to one who might reflect
honor on his country.