Rodez, called Segodunum under the Gauls, and Ruthena under the Romans, was the capital of the Rutheni, a tribe allied to the Arverni, and was afterwards the principal town in the district of Rouergue. In the 4th century it adopted the Christian faith, and St Amans, its first bishop, was elected in 401. During the middle ages contests were rife between the bishops, who held the temporal power in the “cité,” and the counts in the “bourg.” The Albigenses were defeated near Rodez in 1210. The countship of Rodez, detached from that of Rouergue at the end of the 11th century, belonged first to the viscounts of Carlat, and from the beginning of the 14th century to the counts of Armagnac. From 1360 to 1368 the English held the town. After the confiscation of the estates of the Armagnacs in 1475 the count ship passed to the dukes of Alençon and then to the D’Albrets. Henry IV. finally annexed it to the crown of France.
RODGERS, JOHN (1771–1838), American sailor, was born in Harford county, Maryland, on the 11th of July 1771. He entered the United States navy when it was organized in 1798. He was second in command to Commodore James Barron (1769*I8SI) in the expedition against the Barbary pirates, and succeeded him in the command in 1805. In this year he brought both Tunis and Tripoli to terms, and then returned to America. In 1811 he was in command as Commodore of the U.S. frigate “President”'(44) oh" Annapolis when he heard that an American seaman had been “pressed” by a British frigate off Sandy Hook. Commodore Rodgers was ordered to sea “to protect American commerce,” but he may have had verbal instructions to retaliate for the impressment of real or supposed British subjects out of American vessels, which was causing much ill-feeling and was a main cause of the War of 1812. On the 16th of May 1811 he sighted and followed the British sloop “Little Belt” (22), and after some hailing and counter hailing, of which very different versions are given on either side, a gun was fired, each side accusing the other of the aggression, and an action ensued in which the “Little Belt” was cut to pieces. The incident, which was represented as an accident by the Americans, and believed to be a deliberate aggression by the British navy, had a share in bringing on war. When hostilities broke out Rodgers commanded a squadron on the coast of America, and was wounded by the bursting of one of his guns while pursuing the British frigate “Belvedere.” He was subsequently President of the Board of Navy Commissioners in 1815–1824 and in 1827–1837, and acting secretary of the navy in 1823 for two weeks. He died in Philadelphia on the 1st of August 1838.
His brother, George Washington Rodgers (1787–1832), a brother-in-law of Commodore Perry, served in the War of 1812 and in the war with Algiers (1815). Rear-Admiral John Rodgers (1812~1882), a son of Commodore John Rodgers, served in the Union navy and in 1877–1882 was superintendent of the Naval Observatory at Washington. G. W. Rodgers had two sons who were naval officers, Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers (1819–1892) and George Washington Rodgers (1822–1863).
RODIN, AUGUSTE (1840–), French sculptor, was born
in 1840, in Paris, and at an early age displayed a taste for his
art. He began by attending Barye’s classes, but did not yield
too completely to his influence. From 1864 to 1870, under
pressure of necessity, he was employed in the studio of Carrier-Belleuse,
where he learnt to deal with the mechanical difficulties
of a sculptor. Even so early as 1864 his individuality was
manifested in his “Man with a Broken Nose.” After the war,
finding nothing to do in Paris, Rodin went to Brussels, where
from 1871 to 1877 he worked, as the colleague of the Belgian
artist Van Rasbourg, on the sculpture for the outside and the
caryatides for the interior of the Bourse, besides exhibiting
in 1875 a “Portrait bf Garnier.” In 1877 he contributed to
the Salon “The Bronze Age,” which was seen again, cast in
bronze, at the Salon of 1880, when it took a third-class medal,
was purchased by the State, and is now in the museum of the
Luxembourg. Between 1882 and 1885 he sent to the Salons
busts of “Jean-Paul Laurens” and “Carrier-Belleuse” (1882),
“Victor Hugo” and “Dalou” (1884), and “Antonin Proust”
(1885). From about this time he chiefly devoted himself to
a great decorative composition six metres high, which was not
finished for twenty years. This is the “Portal of Hell,” the
most elaborate perhaps of all Rodin’s works, executed to order
for the Musée des arts décoratifs. It is inspired mainly by
Dante’s Inferno, the poet himself being seated at the top,
while at his feet, in under-cut relief, we see the writhing crowd
of the damned, torn by the frenzy of passion and the anguish
of despair. The lower part consists of two bas-reliefs, in their
midst two masks of tormented faces. Round these run figures
of women and centaurs. Above the door three men cling to
each other in an attitude'of despair. After beginning this
titanic undertaking, and while continuing to work on it, Rodin
executed for the town of Danvillers a statue of “Bastien-Lepage”;
for Nancy a “Monument to Claude le Lorrain,”
representing the Chariot of the Sun drawn by horses; and for
Calais “The Burgesses of Calais” surrendering the keys of the
town and imploring mercy. In this, Rodin, throwing over
all school tradition, represents the citizens not as grouped on a
square or circular plinth, but walking in file. This work was
exhibited at the Petit Gallery in 1889. At the time of the
secession of the National Society of Fine Arts, or New Salon, in
1890, Rodin withdrew from the old Society of French Artists,
and exhibited in the New Salon the bust of his friend “Puvis
de Chavannes” (1892), “Contemplation” and a “Caryatid,”
both in marble, and the “Monument to Victor Hugo” (1897),
intended for the gardens of the Luxembourg. In this the poet
is represented nude, as a powerful old man extending his right
arm with a sovereign gesture, the Muses standing behind
him. In 1898 Rodin exhibited two very dissimilar works,
“The Kiss,” exhibited again in 1900, a marble group representing
Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, and the sketch
in plaster for a “Statue of Balzac.” This statue, a commission
from the Society of Men of Letters, had long been expected,
and was received with vehement dissensions. Some critics
regarded this work, in which Balzac was represented in his
voluminous dressing-gown, as the first-fruits of a new phase
of sculpture; others, on the contrary, declared that it was
incomprehensible, if not ridiculous. This was the view taken
by the society who had ordered it, and who “refused to recognize
Rodin’s rough sketch as a statue of Balzac,” and withdrew the
commission, giving it to the sculptor Falguière. Falguière
exhibited his model in 1899. In the same Salon, Rodin, to prove
that the conduct of the society had made no change in his friendship
with Falguière, exhibited a bust in bronze of his rival,
as well as one of “Henri Rochefort.” In 1900, the city of Paris,
to do honour to Rodin, erected at its own expense a building
close to one of the entrances to the Great Exhibition, in which
almost all of the works of the artist were to be seen, more
especially the great “Portal of Hell,” still quite incomplete,
the “Balzac,” and a host of other works, many of them unfinished
or mere rough sketches. Here, too, were to be seen some of
Rodin’s designs, studies and water-colour drawings. He has
also executed a great many etchings and sgrajiti on porcelain
for the manufactory at Sèvres. His best-known etching is the
portrait of Victor Hugo. Many of Rodin’s works are in private
collections, and at the Luxembourg he is represented by a
“Danaid” (in marble), a “Saint John” (in bronze, 1880),
“She who made the Helmet” (bronze statuette), the busts of
“J. P. Laurens” and of “A Lady” and other works. In the
Musée Galliera is a very fine bust of Victor Hugo. Rodin’s
“Hand of God” was exhibited in the New Gallery, London,
in 1905. In 1904 Mr Ernest Beckett (Lord Grimthorpe) presented
the British nation with the sculptor’s “Le Penseur.”
In the same year Rodin became president of the International
Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers, in succession to
James McNeill Whistler.
See Sculpture (Modern French); also Geffroy, La Vie artistique (Paris, 1892, 1893, 1899, 1900); L. Maillard, Rodin (Paris, 1899); La Plume, Rodin et son œuvre (Paris, 1900); Alexandre, Le Balzac de Rodin (Paris, 1898); H. Boutet, Dix dessins choisis de Auguste Rodin (1904); R. Dircks, Auguste Rodin (1904); H. Duhem, Auguste Rodin (1903); C. Black, Auguste Rodin: the Man, his Ideas and his Works (1905).
RODNEY, GEORGE BRYDGES RODNEY, Baron (1718–1792), English admiral, second son of Henry Rodney of
