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 Sheep-shearing, in which he had tried, he says, "to paint a happy place where life is kind amid its roughness, a pure air and a fine August day." In spite of their charm, these pictures gave rise to violent debates. Millet's old admirers, Théophile Gautier and Paul de St Victor, had become his fiercest enemies. Corot would give no opinion, did not understand, was scared by this sort of painting, and preferred, as he said, "his little tunes." On the other hand, Delacroix and Barye were on Millet's side, and with them Daumier, Diaz, Meissonier, Stevens and Gerôme. Such names were enough to outweigh the critiques of literary men.

In 1862 Millet painted, and in 1863 exhibited at the Salon, Winter and the Crows, Potato Planters, Sheep grazing, Woman carding Flax, The Stag, and the Man with the Hoe. In painting the last of these pictures he foresaw pretty clearly towards what a battle he was marching. It was a sort of challenge flung at Parisian taste. Labour was presented in its sternest and most painful shape, as a torture, racking man's limbs and killing his mind, dragging him down almost to the level of the beast.