and eldest boy), though set to weed and hoe upon the wee farm in his
boyhood, was destined by his father for some other life than that of a
tiller of the soil. He was born in the year before Waterloo--1814--and
was brought up on his father's plot of land, in the hard rough way to
which peasant children in France are always accustomed. Bronzed by sun
and rain, poorly clad, and ill-fed, he acquired as a lad, from the open
air and the toilsome life he led, a vigour of constitution which enabled
him to bear up against the numerous hardships and struggles of his later
days. "A Norman Peasant," he loved to call himself always, with a
certain proud humility; and happily he had the rude health of one all
his life long.

Hard as he worked, little Francois' time was not entirely taken up with
attending to the fields or garden. He was a studious boy, and learned
not only to read and write in French, but also to try some higher
flights, rare indeed for a lad of his position. His family possessed
remarkable qualities as French peasants go; and one of his great-uncles,
a man of admirable strength of character, a priest in the days of the
great Revolution, had braved the godless republicans of his time, and
though deprived of his cure, and compelled to labour for his livelihood
in the fields, had yet guided the plough in his priestly garments. His
grandmother first taught him his letters; and when she had instructed
him to the length of reading any French book that was put before him,
the village priest took him in hand. In France, the priest comes often
from the peasant class, and remains in social position a member of that
class as long as he lives. But he always possesses a fair knowledge of
Latin, the language in which all his religious services are conducted;
and this knowledge serves as a key to much that his unlearned
parishioners could never dream of knowing. Young Millet's parish priest
taught him as much Latin as he knew himself; and so the boy was not only