Jean de Fiennes at the Rodin Museum, Paris

In 1347, at the end of a year-long siege, six notables of the city of Calais agreed to hand over the keys of their city to the victorious King of England. The story is reported by Jean Froissart in Les Chroniques de France (1370-1400).

In September 1884, the mayor of Calais, Omer Dewavrin, proposed to erect a monument, with the help of a national subscription, in tribute to the heroism of Eustace de Saint-Pierre and his companions. The painter Alphonse Prosper Isaac, a Calaisian living in Paris, was asked to guide the committee in the choice of a statuary and proposed the name of Rodin. After reading Jean Froissart's account, the sculptor set to work without waiting for a firm order. It is not a bourgeois from Calais that he wishes to represent in a "slow procession towards death" but six: Eustace of Saint-Pierre, Jean d'Aire, Pierre and Jacques de Wissant, Andrieu d'Andres and Jean de Fiennes.

From the very first model, the notion of collective sacrifice is obvious. The six characters, who are not yet individualized, are presented on the same plane, one next to the other, without hierarchy and dressed in the shirts of the condemned. They are placed on a very high rectangular base, decorated with bas-reliefs, which forms a triumphal pedestal. This first model excited the committee and earned Rodin the official commission for the monument.