Page:François-Millet.djvu/55

 of rich farmers who had been reckoned gentlefolk. One of her great-uncles was a priest who had risked his life during the Revolution by his proud refusal to take the oath to the Constitution and deny his uncompromising faith; he, in person, was a Hercules and took pleasure in field labour. Another great-uncle was learned in chemistry; a third, a miller, used to read Pascal, Nicole, Montaigne and Charron. But the most original person of the family and the one who had most influence upon Millet was his grandmother, Louise Jumelin. She was an old countrywoman of intense religious faith, a Catholic Puritan living in God like a woman of Port Royal, seeing everything in God and mingling God in every scene of nature and every act of life. One of Millet's earliest recollections was of his grandmother awakening him when he was quite a little child and saying to him: "Up my little François! If you only knew what a long time the birds have been singing the glory of God."

These rare, aristocratic peasants had amazing libraries. The Port Royal books, Bossuet, Fénélon, St Francis of Sales, St Jerome and 37