Naturally, the appearance of "The Burghers of Calais," even that, could not fail to have its share of comic anecdote, that bitter and painful humor that marks the adventures of genius in its struggle with vulgarity. Let us not complain too much. The contrast between these adventures and the proud way of life of a great man, the regularity of his hours of toil--it is this that creates opposition, movement, life. The elect soul feels a savage joy in these blows which shake it like a tree tormented by brutal hands, a tree aware of the vigor of its resistance and its ever-increasing tenacity. The municipality of Calais, hearing that there were to be six statues instead of the one that had been ordered, took umbrage, and deliberated for two years. The heroic group waited, and, as it encumbered Rodin's atelier, where other works were going forward, it was placed in a stable. At last the worthy town authorities decided to assign it a site. Naturally, the site in question was exactly opposed to the ideas of the master--ideas that had been thought out and that were perfectly logical, based on the laws of decorative art and still more determined by that infallible criterion, taste. Rodin desired that his monument should be in the center of the town; they placed it on the edge of the sea. He counted on emphasizing the tall stature of his figures by enshrining it in the narrow frame of the houses; they placed it against a horizon without limits. He requested that the group should be placed very low, almost on the ground, or else very high on an elevated pedestal, like the "Colleoni" at Venice or the "Gattamelata" at Padua; they placed it at a middle height, thus diminishing the effect of its imposing proportions. The lesson had to come from foreign lands. The city of Antwerp has erected, in front of its museum of fine arts, two of the statues of the celebrated group, and England, which does things splendidly when it is a question of embellishing its cities or of rendering homage to the valor of its adversaries, has erected the effigies of the six heroes of Calais on one of the most beautiful sites in London, before the Palace of Westminster. * * * * * By this time the reader is sufficiently familiar with the technic of Rodin for it to be unnecessary to analyze here in detail this well-known work. What must not be forgotten is that the sculptor had first modeled these six powerful bodies entirely in the nude. This is his invariable method when he executes draped figures. One realizes this, even without knowing it, before these arms, these hands, these legs, and these feet constructed with that rigorous conscience which, with the true artist, is at once a necessity and a delight; one divines the slope of the torsos bent with grief or rigid in the pride of sacrifice.