something worse to him--of effort
misdirected, and of constant struggling against a system for which he
was not fitted. In fact, Millet was an original genius, whereas the
teachers at the School of Fine Arts were careful and methodical
rule-of-thumb martinets. They wished to train Millet into the ordinary
pattern, which he could not follow; and in the end, he left the school,
and attached himself to the studio of Paul Delaroche, then the greatest
painter of historical pictures in all Paris. But even Delaroche,
though an artist of deep feeling and power, did not fully understand
his young Norman pupil. He himself used to paint historical pictures
in the grand style, full of richness and beauty; but his subjects were
almost always chosen from the lives of kings or queens, and treated
with corresponding calmness and dignity. "The Young Princes in the
Tower," "The Execution of Marie Antoinette," "The Death of Queen
Elizabeth," "Cromwell viewing the Body of Charles I."--these were the
kind of pictures on which Delaroche loved to employ himself. Millet,
on the other hand, though also full of dignity and pathos, together
with an earnestness far surpassing Delaroche's, did not care for these
lofty subjects. It was the dignity and pathos of labour that moved him
most; the silent, weary, noble lives of the uncomplaining peasants,
amongst whom his own days had been mostly passed. Delaroche could not
make him out at all; he was such a curious, incomprehensible, odd young
fellow! "There, go your own way, if you will," the great master said
to him at last; "for my part, I can make nothing of you."

So, shortly after, Millet and his friend Marolle set up a studio for
themselves in the Rue de l'Est in Paris. The precise occasion of their
going was this. Millet was anxious to obtain the Grand Prize of Rome
annually offered to the younger artists, and Delaroche definitely told
him that his own influence would be used on behalf of another pupil.
After this, the young Norman felt that he could do better by following
out his own genius in his own fashion. At the Rue de l'Est, he
continued to study hard, but he also devoted a large part of his time
to painting cheap portraits--what artists call "pot-boilers;" mere
hasty works dashed off anyhow to earn his daily livelihood. For these
pictures he got about ten to fifteen francs apiece,--in English money
from eight to twelve shillings. They were painted in a theatrical
style, whic