The Rodin Museum is one of the most popular tourist sites in Paris. It encompasses a lovely old house surrounded by a huge garden, with several of Rodin’s bronze sculptures positioned here and there in the grounds. One sculpture in particular is placed so that all passersby can enjoy it, even without entering the museum precincts and paying the admission fee. Rodin’s depiction of “The Burghers of Calais” stands near a glass wall, so that anyone walking down the rue de Varenne can see it.

Why that piece in particular? I think there is a reason. Only a few visitors know the story behind this particular sculpture. And most guidebooks give the barest outline. Essentially, it is this:

In the early part of the Hundred Years’ War, Edward III of England conducted a siege of Calais that lasted close to a year. Eventually, in August 1347, the inhabitants of Calais surrendered to the English forces. Edward III demanded that six of the most prominent citizens (burghers) leave the city with nooses around their necks, carrying the keys to the city. Six Calais citizens walked out to meet the king barefoot, in rags, gaunt from a year of near-starvation. Edward ordered that they be beheaded. His wife, however, intervened. According to the medieval chronicler Jean Froissart, the heavily pregnant Queen Philippa threw herself at her husband’s feet and said:

“Gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea from my home in great peril to be with you, I have desired nothing of you. Now therefore I humbly beg you, in honour of God and for the love of me, that ye will have mercy on these six citizens.”

The king looked sullenly at the queen and then said: “Ah, dame, I would you had been elsewhere, for if ye make such request to me, I cannot deny you. Wherefore I give them to you, to do your pleasure with them.”

The queen caused the six citizens to be brought to her apartment, had them clothed in garments suitable to their station, and gave them dinner. Finally she had each of them brought out of the English host under safe guard and set at liberty.

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