[Illustration: A SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK. FROM A PAINTING BY CHARLES ÉMILE JACQUE.
A typical example of the master, solidly painted, though, as was often his habit, somewhat forced in effect.]
Of the life of Rousseau as the head of the little colony of painters who for longer or shorter periods resided at Barbizon, much could be said if space permitted. It is pleasant to think that the more prosperous Rousseau helped with purse and influence his comrades, and that, by nature sad and irritable, he was always considerate of them in the many discussions which took place. Corot, ill at ease in the revolutionary atmosphere, made an occasional appearance. Diaz, he of meridional extraction, turbulent and emphatic, stamped his wooden leg, and was as illogical in debate as in painting. Charles Jacque, with the keen smile and the facility for absorbing ideas from the best of them; Ziem even, who painted Venice for some years in the shades of Fontainebleau; Dupré, whose nature expresses itself in deep sunsets gleaming through the oaks of the forest; Daubigny, the youngest of the group, and the more immediate forerunner of landscape as it is to-day, then winning his first success; Decamps, who later sometimes left the Imperial Court, domiciled for the moment at the palace of Fontainebleau, and brought his personality of a great painter who failed through lack of elementary instruction, among them; Daumier, the great caricaturist, and possibly greater painter, but for the engrossing character of the work which first fell in his way--all these and more made up the constantly shifting group. The first innkeeper of the place and his wife, whose hyphenated name, Luniot-Ganne, commemorated their union, kept for many years on the walls, the panels of the doors, and on odd cabinets and bits of furniture, _souvenirs_ of the passage of all these men, in the shape of sketches made by their hands. This little museum, created in sportive mood, bore all these names and many more, those of men, often celebrated, who from sympathy or curiosity visited the place. Millet was in life, as in art, somewhat apart in the later years; but he was the consistent friend of Rousseau, whose life closed in the darkness of a disordered mind.