[Illustration: NESTLINGS. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET, IN
THE MUSEUM AT LILLE.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. A notable instance of
the scope of Millet's power, as tender in depicting children as it is
austere in "The Gleaners."]

With a portion, of this allowance, and a small addition from the
"economies" of his mother and grandmother, Millet went to Paris in 1837.
The great city failed to please the country-bred youth, and, indeed,
until the end of his life, Millet disliked Paris. I remember his saying
that, on his visits from Barbizon to the capital, he was happy on his
arrival at the station, but when he arrived at the column of the
Bastille, a few squares within the city, the _mal du pays_ took him
by the throat.

At first he spent all his time in the Louvre, which revealed to him what
the little provincial museum of Cherbourg had but faintly suggested.
Before long, however, he entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, who was
the popular master of the time. There he won the sobriquet of the "man
of the woods," from a savage taciturnity which was his defence in the
midst of the _atelier_ jokes. He had come to work, and to work he
addressed himself, with but little encouragement from master or
comrades. Strong as a young Hercules, with a dignity which never forsook
him, his studies won at least the success of attention. When a favorite
pupil of the master remonstrated that his men and women were hewed from
stone, Millet replied tranquilly, "I came here because there are Greek
statues and living men and women to study from, not to please you or any
one. Do I preoccupy myself with your figures made of honey and butter?"