JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
human beings, against this great bulk of living flesh in its desperate resistance, a struggle carried on in a farmyard shut in by great dark walls under a gloomy leaden sky. "It is a drama," said Millet.
The war of 1870 broke out. Millet left Barbizon and went with his family to Cherbourg. He was nearly taken for a Prussian spy, because he was drawing the harbour. He was arrested and taken to a military station; after enquiries had been made he was set free, but was urgently advised not even to seem to hold a pencil in the open street, or he would run the risk of being cut to pieces by the crowd, or shot! Indeed he had no inclination to paint. He was overwhelmed by the disasters of his country. "Ah! how I hate whatever is German," he wrote to Sensier. "I am in a constant state of boiling over. Curses and ruin upon them!" He tried in vain to put these horrible things out of his mind and immerse himself in his work. The fights in Paris, the conflagrations and massacres completed his heart-break. The Commune had inscribed his name among the Federation of Artists; he wrote to protest,
110
