French Guards

“ On the one hand this faction takes post on the galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons, "five or six hundred permanent actors," who yell according to understood signals and at the word of command.1424 Many of these are French Guards, in civilian clothes, and who relieve each other: previously they have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats." ”

“ Nine hundred Swiss guards, upon whom it was thought reliance could be reposed, were placed on the stairs, in the halls, and the large saloons. Six or eight hundred mounted dragoons were in one of the court-yards. Several battalions of the National Guard, who were most friendly to the king, were stationed in the garden with twelve pieces of artillery. [347] The defenders of the palace amounted in all to about four or five thousand men. But many of these were very lukewarm in their loyalty, and might at any moment be expected to fraternize with the populace. ”

“ A great many Officers of the Guards who had volunteered for service in the Crimea, marched past with the regiments to which they were attached; also cavalry Officers with their sabres and spurs in the infantry. They point their toes as they march past, like the Prussians.
“April 17th.—Luders returned Codrington’s and Pélissier’s visit, and came down to have an exhibition of the English and French armies. We were in line of contiguous columns, nearly 30,000 strong and 86 guns (no cavalry) , all in the most perfect order; I never saw anything so well as our troops looked. ”

“ In the French army was a regiment of soldiers who were called guards; they were all dressed alike, in blue coats and white pantaloons, trimmed with crimson and gold: they were terrible fellows to fight, and their enemies were very much afraid of [Pg 2] them, or they were always in the thickest of the battle, clearing their way with the points of their bayonets. While this regiment was pursuing the Austrians, near the burning village, one of the Guards, an old man, saw a sweet little girl who could scarcely walk ”

“ Thus the National Guards, as a purely civic body, were not looked upon as soldiers, and were threatened with the penalties inflicted on persons taking up arms without authority from the central military power. In the next war against Germany the French propose to call out the whole of their available forces; and to be recognised as regular troops the Sapeurs-pompiers must have a military organisation and act under military chiefs formally appointed and responsible to a superior officer. ”

“ These Civil Guards are picked men, robust, strapping, seasoned fellows, and are distributed over the country like the French gendarmery, to whose duties theirs are similar. They form a corps d'élite, and are the very mainstay of order. In fact, without them life and property during times of political commotion would very often be at the mercy of any horde of ragamuffins with weapons in their hands and the courage to use them. ”

“ They were to be seen at all the public buildings, at the various and numerous hôtels where the Allied Sovereigns and their Counsellors and principal Officers lodged, and even at the places of entertainment where the people flocked during the balmy weather of a French summer. Nor were these duties of a ceremonial 33character; for guard-houses were placed in nearly all the principal thoroughfares, the bridges were held by troops, there were chains of sentries everywhere, patrols were constantly on the move and on the alert, and guns were kept loaded and ready for any serious emergency. ”

“ And they went in--the Coldstreams and the Grenadiers--to take over the trenches from the Canadians, to delve and sweat, carrying loads of ammunition on their backs, crawling into No Man's Land, laying mines, shooting Germans or braining them with the butts of their rifles, or treating them to the cold steel, as imperturbable as you see them now--it being all in the day's work. The popularity of the Guards arouses no jealousy in the other divisions. "We don't grudge 'em what they get," remarked a sergeant in a line regiment; "they work hard, and they deserve it. ”

“ At this moment the National Defence had in or ready for the field only 40,000 regular infantry, a like number of Mobile Guards, from 5000 to 6000 cavalry, and about 100 guns, some of antiquated models and with very few men to serve them. There were certainly a good many men at various regimental dépôts, together with Mobile Guards and National Guards in all the uninvaded provinces of France ”

“ The National Guard are organizing throughout France. We have already fourteen thousand men for the two arrondissements only of St. Denis and Seaux.
“I send to you the order of the day which I addressed to the National Guard of the kingdom. Next week a law will be proposed for the final organization of the French National Guard. All the citizens will compose the stationary guard; the young men the movable National Guard. From seven to eight hundred thousand fighting men will thus form good corps of reserve. ”

“ He was not himself a guardsman, but there was no trace of jealousy in his voice. I have noticed the same thing again and again. There are people who dislike the Guards, accusing them of conceit or resenting certain privileges. I never met any one who refused to give the Guards first place in battle, on the march, in camp. It is a magnificent record to have established in an army like ours, a wonderful record to have kept through a long-drawn war like this, when every regiment has been destroyed and remade of new material half a dozen times. ”

“ The chief of the patrol came forward and answered—‘Vengeance!’ I remember wondering at the moment why he spoke so loud in giving the pass-word, when suddenly I saw three men rush forward, seize our captain, and throw him down. At the same time two or three hundred men, dressed as National Guards, threw themselves into the camp, rushed upon the sleeping artillery-men with their bayonets, and then fired several volleys into the tents where our poor comrades were asleep. What I had taken at first for National Guards were only those devils of sergents-de-ville dressed up! ”

“ Everywhere, except south of the Loire,—where the last remnants of Napoleon’s army had collected under Marshal Davoût,—was the country in the military occupation of foreigners; and in Paris especially, there were no regular troops to be seen, other than those of Great Britain, of Prussia, and of their allies. They guarded the King and the Royal palaces; they stood at the barriers of the town, and they performed all the military duties of the capital. ”

“ Men come and go in war. The regiment remains. Its battle honours are the symbol of what it was, the promise of what it will be.
No body of troops in the British Army has redeemed the promise of its battle honours more illustriously in this war than the Guards. Marlborough, Wellington, Raglan, who saw in their careers, each in his turn, that the Guards were true to the promise of their colours, must look down from the Elysian Fields [Pg 246] in proud admiration of the way in which the Guards in this war have once more maintained the untarnished splendour of their name. ”

“ The Parisians, so frequently peaceable spectators of events, participated in this burst of patriotism: not contented with erecting their intrenchments with their own hands, they solicited the honour of defending them; and twenty thousand men, composed of national guards, federates of the suburbs, and citizens of all ranks, were formed into battalions for actual service under the denomination of tirailleurs of the national guard. ”

“ The parks of artillery are to be formed where they can be protected; they are never to be without guards, and troops should be sufficiently near to afford them support.
“If an attroupement or riotous assembly of the inhabitants against the military takes place, the troops are to be under arms, and the attroupement is to be fired upon. Any act of violence against the soldiery is to be immediately noticed, and the offenders are to be secured. The service must be respected. The General Officers are to take care that the discipline and good conduct of the troops merit the respect demanded. ”

“ But Paris could muster three or four hundred thousand National Guards, animated by the most ardent patriotism, invincible behind their ramparts, and of which a select portion could face the enemy’s fire with the intrepidity of old troops. ”

“ The years spent in France were useful to the British troops quartered there. It was a time when they had to be prepared for every emergency, when they had to cultivate amicable relations with a foreign people who resented deeply their presence among them, when their demeanour towards the inhabitants had to be both firm and conciliatory, and when their military efficiency and discipline could alone enable them to discharge the delicate duties with which they were entrusted. ”

“ As Guard regiments we form one whole, and, therefore, what affects one casts its shadow on the others likewise, for people do not say such and such a thing happened in the 'Golden Butterflies,' but simply 'in the Guards.' Such a thing is frightful, for more than all the other regiments we must maintain outwardly, at any rate, a good reputation. ”

“ Troops advancing to assault a town, flushed, indeed, with victory, but uncertain whether that victory may not be wrenched the next minute from their grasp, have no time to deliberate. Some of the French Guard sought a vain refuge in bursting open the houses and ascending the chimneys, but their enemies were too close at their heels for them to succeed. ”

“ Still the day passed over without serious hostilities. On the next day, the National Guards of Paris were called out. Their cry, as they marched through the different quarters of the city, was "Vive la réforme!" This emboldened the leaders of the revolutionists. The members of the secret societies flew to arms; and in the skirmishes which followed between the populace and the regular troops, National Guard disaffected the National Guard everywhere interfered in favor of the former. Thus confronted, officers and soldiers hesitated to commit a general assault upon their fellow citizens. ”

“ It is not a creation of this war, for then surely it would have withered for lack of fertile soil, by reason of the number of original Guardsmen who have died. On the contrary, it is seen as strong and as virile as ever, even in men who abandoned their civilian pursuits to take service with the Guards. The young men of good birth who have received commissions in the Guards after the outbreak of war, and the recruits who come out with drafts—novices all, not only to the war, but also to the Guards—are saturated with this manly respect for soldierly virtues. ”

“ You take the sense of the Army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice that you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the Ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable undistinguishing favour with which the Guards are treated; while those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. ”

“ All our best [91] troops have gone to crush the English. Any men are good enough to defeat these red-snouted pigs. The Guard Corps has gone to destroy your Guards;" and then the fellow would go on to say where the various German corps were stationed, which was valuable information. In this way I first learned that the English Guards were in France; and many important details of the fighting there—details which it was troublesome to verify, but I did verify them: and so various and important was the information I gathered that I was, for a time, much employed in this work by the Russian staff. ”

“ I know the sentiments the Guards cherish towards me. I repose perfect confidence in their courage and fidelity. I constantly see, with renewed pleasure, companions in arms who have escaped so many dangers, and are covered with so many honourable wounds. I experience a sentiment of satisfaction when I look at the Guards, and think that there has not, for the last fifteen years, in any of the four quarters of the world, been a battle in which some of them have not taken part. ”

“ On Wednesday and Thursday several regiments of the Line and of the Mobiles bitterly complained that they should always be ordered to the front to protect not only Paris but the National Guards. The marching battalions are composed of unmarried men between twenty-five and thirty-five, and why they should not be called upon to incur the same risks, and submit to the same discipline as the Mobiles, it is difficult to understand. We may learn from the experience of this siege that in war, armed citizens who decline to submit to the discipline of soldiers are worse than useless. ”

“ The Garde Nationale will perform police duties, and the garrison, composed of the Allied troops, occupying the great centres of the town, will remain in reserve. In case the latter have to act, for the Garde Nationale may refuse to quell disturbances, guns will be fired, when the regular forces will assemble at their alarm posts. The British brigade will form up in the Avenue de Neuilly, one battalion in Place Beauveau, and another at the junction of the Boulevard de la Madeleine and Rue St. ”

“ La Fayette was marching on Versailles from Paris with a considerable force of partly trained Militia. The Guards, round whom the legend of the supper had grown, and whose white cockades were an insult to the national colours, exasperated the populace beyond bearing, and were, it was thought, the main cause of the pressure to which the troops were subjected. Wisely or foolishly, the Guard was withdrawn; the line regiments alone were left to contain the mob. ”