JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
shop at the corner of the Rue de Notre Dame de Lorette and the Rue St Lazare; Young women sewing, a Man spreading Manure, and The Four Seasons. He was also busy upon a picture of Ruth and Boaz.
In 1851 he lost his grandmother. She had had a paralytic stroke but retained all her mental powers to the end. Her death threw Millet into deep despair. He remained obstinately silent for many days. His mother was now alone, in the country, far from him; she wrote painful and plaintive entreaties that he would come and embrace her before she too passed away. Millet's heart was rent by this pressing appeal; but he was short of money and unable to take the journey. "My poor child," wrote his mother, "if you could only come before the winter! I have a great longing to see you this one little time more. I have done without everything; there is nothing left for me but to suffer and die. I am so worried with suffering in my body and my mind, when I think of what is to become of you all in the future, with no provision; I neither sleep nor rest. You tell me that you wish very much to come and see me and stay some
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