Bronze sculpture “Pierre de Wissant” by Auguste Rodin, museum replica

Rodin's famous "Burghers of Calais" are a historical symbol of self-sacrifice: During the Hundred Years' War, Calais was besieged by the English fleet and offered 11 months of heroic resistance until the starving inhabitants offered their surrender. King Edward III accepted on the condition that six citizens volunteer to stand up for the city's execution: "Bareheaded and barefoot - clothed in the smock of a poor sinner, with the noose at their necks." At the request of Queen Philippine, Edward III spared the lives of the courageous men and refrained from destroying the city. In his masterpiece, created in 1886, Auguste Rodin depicted, for the first time, not a powerful figure, but the courageous act of ordinary citizens. As a national monument of both England and France, casts of the life-size sculpture group now stand behind the Houses of Parliament in London, in the garden of the Musée Rodin in Paris, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.