Grade 11/12 Art - Day 38 "The Burghers of Calais, Session 2"

The Story of the Burghers of Calais

In 1885 the town council of the French city of Calais commissioned Rodin to produce a sculpture that would pay tribute to the burghers of Calais, heroes of the Hundred Years’ War and symbols of French patriotism.

In 1347, according to the fourteenth-century Chronicles of Jean Froissart, King Edward III of England laid siege to the French town of Calais. After eleven months, with the people desperately short of food and water, six of the leading citizens, or burghers, of Calais offered themselves as hostages to Edward in exchange for the freedom of their city. The king agreed, ordering them to dress in plain garments, wear nooses around their necks, and journey to his camp bearing the keys to the city. Although the king intended to kill the burghers, his pregnant wife, Philippa, persuaded him to spare them, believing that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child. 

The story of the burghers of Calais appears in the work of earlier artists, most of whom focused on the single figure of Eustache de Saint-Pierre. Rodin, however, decided to include all six burghers. He had read Froissart’s Chronicles and elected to use the text as the basis for his sculpture. 

Froissart describes how each man, a rich and well-respected citizen, announces his intention to offer himself as a hostage to King Edward III. Froissart then writes of the men’s departure after removing the fine clothing that would have identified them as wealthy citizens, wearing instead their “shirts and breeches” (undergarments). 

Rodin chooses to portray the moment in the narrative when the men, believing they are going to die, leave the city. He shows the burghers as vulnerable and conflicted, yet heroic in the face of their likely fate.

The council originally had conceived of the sculpture as a monument to Eustache de Saint-Pierre, leader of the group and the most famous of the burghers. Rodin, however, decided to follow Froissart’s text as closely as possible and include all six burghers, according them equal status. The following is an excerpt from Froissart’s Chronicles:. . . the richest burgher in the town, Sir Eustache de Saint-Pierre, got up and said: 

“Gentlemen, it would be a great shame to allow so many people to starve to death, if there were any way of preventing it. And it would be highly pleasing to Our Lord if anyone could save them from such a fate. I have such faith and trust in gaining pardon and grace from Our Lord if I die in the attempt, that I will put myself forward as the first. I will willingly go out in my shirt, bareheaded and barefoot, with a halter [noose] around my neck and put myself at the mercy of the King of England.”
. . . Another very rich and much respected citizen, called Jean d’Aire, . . . rose up and said he would keep him company. The third to volunteer was Sir Jacques de Wissant who was very rich both by inheritance and by his own transactions; he offered to accompany his two cousins, and so did Sir Pierre his brother. Two others completed the number, and set off dressed only in their shirts and breeches, and with halters round their necks, as they had been told.

John Jolliffe, ed. and trans., Froissart’s Chronicles (London: Harvill Press, 1967), p. 155, quoted in Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, p. 182

TASK: Please return to your original write-up about your character.  How would you write your paragraph differently, now that you know the story?

We will discuss this tomorrow.

Source: http://www.metmuseum.org/~/media/Files/Learn/For%20Educators/Publications%20for%20Educators/Burghers.pdf