Les Bourgeois de Calais

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Spain (LaBreu, catalan language)

Rodin’s monument The Burghers of Calais - a tribute to the heroism of six rich citizens who, after a long siege at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, surrendered to the king of England so that their fellow citizens would be spared - exercises a universal fascination. There are twelve examples of this moving bronze choreography in the world: in Calais, Paris, Copenhagen, Mariemont, London, Philadelphia, Basel, Washington, Tokyo, Pasadena, New York and Seoul.

The work, commissioned by Omer Dewawrin - notary, mayor of Calais in 1884 - for his industrial port city and originally intended for the century of the French Revolution, was finally inaugurated in 1895.

The Burghers of Calais is the story of the creation of this statuary group, where, with the support of his wife, a bourgeois of the late nineteenth century carried out a project that went against the academic taste, against his own habits and those of his milieu, despite the historical controversies and political struggles between radicals and conservatives, despite a financial crisis and a cholera epidemic.

It is also a novel on the friendship between two men - a clear-sighted notable of his time and a sculptor in pursuit of the unknown -, where the first one detected the other’s genius and induced him to go to the end of his vision.

Michel Bernard was born in Bar-le-Duc. A civil servant, he is the author of Mes tours de France (L’Âge d’Homme, 1999, La Petite Vermillon, 2014) and Comme un Enfant, a fictionalized biography of Charles Trenet (Le Temps qu’il fait, 2003). After La Tranchée de Calonne in 2007 (Prix Erckmann-Chatrian), he published at la Table Ronde La Maison du docteur Laheurte (2008, Prix Maurice Genevoix), Le Corps de la France (2010, Prix Erwan Bergot de l’Armée de Terre), Pour Genevoix (2011), Les Forêts de Ravel (2015, Prix de la Ville de Deauville), Deux remords de Claude Monet (2016, Prix Libraires en Seine) and Le Bon Cœur (2018, Prix Roman France Télévisions).