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And only a few miles away, clinging to the hillside, is By, where lived Rosa Bonheur–too busy to care for Barbizon, or if she thought of the “Barbizon School” it was with a fine contempt, which the “School” returned with usurious interest.

At the Barbizon Inn the Bohemians used to sing songs about the Bonheur breeches, and “the Lady who keeps a Zoo.” The offense of Rosa Bonheur was that she minded her own business, and sold the “Horse Fair” for more money than the entire Barbizon School had ever earned in its lifetime.

Only two names loom large out of Barbizon. Daubigny, Diaz and Rousseau are great painters, and they each have disciples and imitators who paint as well as they; but Corot and Millet stand out separate and alone, incomprehensible and unrivaled.

And yet were ever two artists more unlike! Just compare “The Dancing Sylphs” and “The Gleaners.” The theme of all Millet’s work is, “Man goeth forth to his labors unto the evening.” Toil, hardship, heroic endurance, plodding monotony, burdens grievous to be borne–these things cover the canvases of Millet. All of his deep sincerity, his abiding melancholy, his rugged nobility are there; for every man who works in freedom simply reproduces himself. That is what true work is–self-expression, self-revelation. The style of Millet is so strongly marked, so deeply etched, that no man dare imitate it. It is covered by a perpetual copyright, signed and sealed with the life’s blood of the artist. Then comes Corot the joyous, Corot the careless, Corot who had no troubles, no sorrows, no grievances, and not an enemy that he recognized as such. He even loved Rosa Bonheur, or would, he once said, “If she would only chain up her dog, and wear woman’s clothes!” Corot, singing at his work, unless he was smoking, and if he was smoking, removing his pipe only to lift up his voice in song: Corot, painting and singing–“Ah ha–tra la la. Now I ‘ll paint a little boy–oho, oho, tra lala la loo–lal loo– oho–what a nice little boy–and here comes a cow; hold that, bossy –in you go for art’s dear sake–tra la la la, la loo!”

Look at a Corot closely and listen, and you can always hear the echo of the pipes o’ Pan. Lovers sit on the grassy banks, children roll among the leaves, sylphs dance in every open, and out from between the branches lightly steps Orpheus, harp in hand, to greet the morn. Never is there a shadow of care in a Corot–all is mellow with love, ripe with the rich gift of life, full of prayer and praise just for the rapture of drinking in the day–grateful for calm, sweet rest and eventide.

Corot, eighteen years the senior of Millet, was the first to welcome the whipped-out artist to Barbizon. With him Corot divided his scanty store; he sang and played his guitar at the Millet hearthstone when he had nothing but himself to give; and when, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five, Millet felt the chill night of death settling down upon him, and the fear that want would come to his loved ones haunted his dreams, Corot assured him by settling upon the family the sum of one thousand francs a year, until the youngest child should become of age, and during Madame Millet’s life.

So died Jean Francois Millet.

In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-nine “The Angelus” was bought by an American Syndicate for five hundred eighty thousand francs. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety it was bought back by agents of the French Government for seven hundred fifty thousand francs, and now has found a final resting-place in the Louvre.

Within a few months after the death of Millet, Corot, too, passed away.

Corot is a remarkable example of a soul ripening slowly. His skill was not at its highest until he was seventy-one years of age. He then had eight years of life and work left, and he continued even to the end. In his art there was no decline.

It can not be said that he received due recognition until he was approaching his seventy-fifth year, for it was then, for the first time, that the world of buyers besieged his door. The few who had bought before were usually friends who had purchased with the amiable idea of helping a worthy man.

During the last few years of Corot’s life, his income was over fifty thousand francs a year–“more than I received for pictures during my whole career,” he once said. And then he shed tears at parting with the treasures that had been for so long his close companions.

“You see, I am a collector,” he used to say, “but being poor, I have to paint all my pictures myself–they are not for sale.”

And probably he would have kept his collection unbroken were it not that he wanted the money so much to give away.

Of the painters classed in the Barbizon School, it is probable that Corot will live longest, and will continue to occupy the highest position. His art is more individual than Rousseau’s, more poetic than that of Daubigny, and in every sense more beautiful than that of Millet. When Camille Corot passed out, on the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five, he was the best-loved man in Paris. Five thousand art-students wore crape on their arms for a year in memory of “Papa Corot,” a man who did his work joyously, lived long, and to the end carried in his heart the perfume of the morning, and the beneficent beauty of the sunrise.