Swiss Guards
a celebrated corps or regiment of Swiss mercenaries in the French army of the old régime, constias "Gardes" by royal decree in 1616. They were ever unswerving in their fidelity to the Bourbon kings, and their courage never blazed more brightly king: than on the steps of the Tuileries Aug. 10, 1792. They had been ordered to leave Paris by a decree of the Assembly on July 17, but had not yet been sent further than their barracks, when on Aug. 8, in anticipation of insurrection, they were ordered to march to the Tuileries. Michelet gives their number as 1,330; Louis Blanc as 950. But the number may now be taken definitely as nearly 800, including the ordinary guard of the king.
In anticipation of a storm Mandat had made admirable arrangements to defend the the palace, but the National Guards frawith the insurgents, and Mandat was murdered on the step steps of the Hôtel de Ville. Meanwhile a growing mob under Santerre, with the famous 500 men of Marseilles at their head, marched on the Tuileries. But before they reached the palace Roederer had persuaded the king to leave the Tuileries and place himself under the protection of the National Assembly. He was accompanied thither by 150 Swiss, besides 200 gentlemen and about 100 National Guards. uncertain what to do, and when Wester- The remainder were left without orders, mann with his Marseilles and a raging mob made their way through the gates of the Tuileries and across the court the 650 Swiss under Captain Durler faced them on the great staircase. Westermann, an Alsatian, tried to win them over by speaking to them in German. Some one fired a shot and the struggle began. The Swiss had already driven back Westermann with about 100 dead, when the king hearing the firing sent them orders to leave the palace. They fought their retreat across treat across the gardens, while the mob into the palace and murdered a few wounded men they found there.
Those under Durler made their way to the Assembly, were disarmed and placed in the neighboring church of the Feuilbut those who were posted in the SWITHIN corridors and rooms of the palace did not hear the order to retreat, and were attacked and hunted to death.
A few fought their way out to the Place Louis XV., where they formed a square under the statue of the king, and were cut to pieces where they stood. Few of those who found refuge in the church of the Feuillants survived that fatal day.
Fifty-four were sent to the Abbaye and were among the first to perish in the atro- September massacres. The heroism memorated in 1821 by the great lion outof the Swiss Guards was fittingly comside one of the gates of Lucerne, cut out of the rock after a model by Thorwaldsen. zigzagging, alternate back and forward