JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
gress. He was, as he said, "en bien grande démolition"—"very thoroughly breaking up." In 1872 he suffered from headache, from pains in the eyes and disturbances of the nerves which often obliged him to keep his bed. In 1873 the lungs were attacked and he had a violent hæmorrhage. "My cough has killed me," he wrote in the September of this year. In 1874 he felt his case hopeless. He said that he was dying too soon, passing away at the moment when he was but beginning to have a clear idea of nature and art. He took to his bed in December. On January 20th, 1875, he died in the midst of his family.
Some days before, a sad and poetic omen that had the beauty of a legend had foretold his death. A poor stag pursued by dogs had come to die in his garden. It was a touching symbol of that fellowship of all beings in suffering and in death which had been the very soul of Millet's genius, the constant inspiration of this great painter of the sorrow of the world.
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