time he had remained
for a year at Cherbourg, where he painted portraits for such small
sums as he could get, and here he and one of his sitters, a young girl
of Cherbourg, falling in love with one another, were married. The
marriage only added, as might have been foreseen, to Millet's
troubles: his wife's health was always delicate; after her marriage it
became worse, and she died four years after in Paris. Not long after
her death Millet married again, and this proved a fortunate venture.
His wife came with him to Paris, and the struggle with life began
anew. The turning-point in the long period of Millet's uncertainties
and disappointments with himself came in 1849, when the political
troubles of the time, and the visit of the cholera, combined to drive
him and his family from Paris. They took refuge at Barbizon, a small
hamlet on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, and here, in
the place that was to be forever associated with his name and work,
Millet passed, with few interruptions, the remaining years of his
life.

The phrase so often heard to-day, "The Barbizon School," is rather
wider than a strict interpretation would warrant, since Millet and
Rousseau were the only ones of the group who lived in the village.
Corot was not acquainted with Millet. Decamps was never in Millet's
house except as a rare visitor to his studio. Diaz lived in Paris.
Jacque, the painter of sheep, was a friend of Millet, and for a time
at least lived at Barbizon in the house where he lodged before he
procured a home of his own. The artistic relationship between these
artists is slight, except in the case of Rousseau and Diaz, and even
there it is only occasionally to be detected. All these men, with
Dupre, Courbet and Delacroix, were counted heretics in art by the
Academy and the official critics, and as Millet was the most marked
figure in the group and was greatly admired and respected by all who
composed it, it was perhaps natural that they should be considered by
the public as disciples of the peasant painter of Barbizon.

Here, then, at Barbizon, Millet lived for the remaining twenty-seven
years of his life, dividing his day between the labors of his farm in
the morning hours, painting in his studio in the afternoon--he always
preferred the half-light for painting--and in the evening enjoying the
society of his wife and children and of such friends as might join the
circle. Occasional visits to Paris, to the galleries, an