able to read the Bible in the Latin or Vulgate translation, but also to
make acquaintance with the works of Virgil and several others of the
great Roman poets. He read, too, the beautiful "Confessions" of St.
Augustine, and the "Lives of the Saints," which he found in his father's
scanty library, as well as the works of the great French preachers,
Bossuet and Fenelon. Such early acquaintance with these and many other
masterpieces of higher literature, we may be sure, helped greatly to
mould the lad's mind into that grand and sober shape which it finally
acquired.

Jean Francois' love of art was first aroused by the pictures in an old
illustrated Bible which belonged to his father, and which he was
permitted to look at on Sundays and festivals. The child admired these
pictures immensely, and asked leave to be permitted to copy them. The
only time he could find for the purpose, however, was that of the mid-
day rest or siesta. It is the custom in France, as in Southern Europe
generally, for labourers to cease from work for an hour or so in the
middle of the day; and during this "tired man's holiday," young Millet,
instead of resting, used to take out his pencil and paper, and try his
hand at reproducing the pictures in the big Bible. His father was not
without an undeveloped taste for art: "See," he would say, looking into
some beautiful combe or glen on the hillside--"see that little cottage
half buried in the trees; how beautiful it is! I think it ought to be
drawn so--;" and then he would make a rough sketch of it on some scrap
of paper. At times he would model things with a bit of clay, or cut the
outline of a flower or an animal with his knife on a flat piece of wood.
This unexercised talent Francois inherited in a still greater degree. As
time went on, he progressed to making little drawings on his own
account; and we may be sure the priest and all the good wives of Gruchy
had quite settled in their own minds before long that Jean Francois