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 Without a murmur, without a protest, little François submitted; and quite simply, with that entire absence of selfish ambition, that inborn stoicism which he showed throughout his life, he sacrificed his tastes in order to fulfil his duties to those around him. His father was remorseful. One day when François showed him a charcoal portrait done from memory of a bowed old man, he said: "My poor François, I see plainly that you are tormented by that idea; I should have been very glad to send you to learn that painting business which they say is such a fine one, but I could not; you are the eldest of the boys and I needed you too much. Now your brothers are growing up and I will not keep you from learning what you wish so much to know." They went together to Cherbourg to see a painter of the school of David, called Mouchel, an artist of no great distinction but a peasant at heart. Millet showed him two drawings of his own invention: one represented two shepherds, the other a man coming out of a house at night and distributing loaves, with these words of St Luke: "Et si non dabit illi surgeussurgens [sic] eo quod amicus ejus sit, propter 44