and it is noteworthy that it so exactly coincides with the popular revolution. Théophile Gautier was much struck by The Winnower. The new government which displayed an interest in all innovators and had just been showing particular favour to Theodore Rousseau and Dupré, gave Millet 500 francs for his picture; and Ledru Rollin gave him a commission for 1200 francs. These marks of the Republic's good will to artists did, no doubt, attract Millet for the moment towards politics; for we find him taking part—not successfully, however—in a competition for a projected statue of the Republic. He represented her without a red cap, crowned with ears of wheat and holding out in one hand honey-cakes and in the other a palette and brushes—such, in a word, as his imagination must have dreamed her, a goddess of the peasant and the artist. He also made a couple of chalk drawings in which the sentiment is much more high flown, and which still exist; in one of them Liberty is to be seen dragging kings by the hair of the head, in the other victoriously brandishing her spear.
This attack of Jacobinism did not last long. The insurrection of July broke out; poverty
56
