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Delaroche and others declared his work was great, but how could they make people buy it?

A time of peculiar pinching hardship came, and Jean Francois again bade Paris adieu and made his way back to Gruchy. There he could work in the fields, gather varech on the seashore, and possibly paint portraits now and then–just for amusement.

And thus he would live out the measure of his days.

The visit of Jean Francois to his boyhood’s home proved a repetition of the first.

Another woman married him.

Catherine Lemaire was not a brilliant woman, but she had a profound belief in her husband’s genius.

Possibly she did not understand him when he talked his best, but she made a brave show of listening, and did not cross him with any little whimsical philosophies of her own.

She was sturdy and strong of heart; privation was nothing to her; she could endure all that Jean Francois could, and count it a joy to be with him.

She was the consoler, not he; and when the mocking indifference of the world passed the work of Jean Francois by, she said, “Who cares, so long as we know ‘t is good?” and measured the stocking on her nose and made merry music with the flying needles.

Soon the truth forced itself on Jean Francois and Catherine that no man is thought much of by his kinsmen and boyhood acquaintances. No one at Gruchy believed in the genius of Jean Francois–no one but the old grandmother, who daily hobbled to mass and prayed the Blessed Virgin not to forget her boy. Jean Francois and his wife studied the matter out and talked it over at length, and they decided that to stay in Gruchy would be to forfeit all hope of winning fame and fortune.

Gruchy held nothing for them; possibly Paris did.

And anyway, to go down in a struggle for better things was not so ignominious an end as to allow one’s powers to rust out, held back only through fear of failure.

They started for Paris.

Yes, Paris remembered Jean Francois. How could Paris forget him–he was so preposterous and his work so impossible!

It was still a struggle for bread.

Marriages and births have a fixed relation to the price of corn, the sociologists say. Perhaps they are right; but not in this case.

The babies came along with the years, and all brought love with them.

The devotion of Jean Francois to his wife and children had a deep, sober, religious quality, such as we associate with Abraham and Jacob and the other patriarchs of old.

The heart of Millet was often wrung by the thought of the privation and hardships his wife and children had to undergo. He blamed himself for their lack of creature comforts, and the salt tears rained down his beard when he had to go home and report that he had tramped the streets all day with a picture under his arm, looking for a buyer, but no buyer could be found.

But all this time the old grandmother up in Normandy waited and watched for news from her boy.

Now and again during the years she saw his name mentioned in connection with the Salon; and once she heard a medal had been granted him, and at another time an “Honorable Mention.”

Her heart throbbed in pride and she wrote congratulations, and thanked the good God for answering her prayers. Little did she know of the times when bread was cut in tiny bits and parceled out to each hungry mouth, or the days when there was no fuel and the children kept to their beds to prevent freezing.

But the few friends of Jean Francois who had forced the “Honorable Mention” and secured the medal, now got something more tangible; they induced the Government Director of Fine Arts to order from Jean Francois Millet a picture for which the artist was to receive two thousand francs; two hundred francs were paid on account and the balance was to be paid on delivery of the picture.