Praetorian Guard

“ At the end of the third century the praefecti praetorio were reconstituted as four officers, each ruling one quarter of the now divided empire. In 312 the Praetorian Guard was suppressed by Constantine. ”

“ Meanwhile a great cloud of cavalry issues from the Allied lines, and directs its course towards the flank of the column: the Emperor sees the danger, and despatches one of his staff to prepare them to receive cavalry. Too late! too late!—the snowdrift has concealed the advance, and the wild horsemen of the desert ride down on the brave ranks. Disorder and confusion ensue; the column breaks and scatters. The lancers pursue the fugitives through the plain; and before the very eyes of the Emperor, the Guard—his Guard—are sabred and routed. ”

“ The red regiment of English Guards, lying behind the hedges, rose up; a shower of grape riddled the tricolored flag. All hurled themselves forward, and the final carnage began. The Imperial Guard felt the army slipping away around them in the gloom and the vast overthrow of the rout. There were no weak souls or cowards there. The privates of that band were as heroic as their general. Not a man flinched from the suicide.
The army fell back rapidly from all sides at once. A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole bends, cracks, snaps, floats, rolls, falls, crashes, hurries, plunges. ”

“ The people quitted their favourite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace in the suburbs, one of the emperor's retirements, and demanded, with angry clamours, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who commanded the Prætorian guards, [28] ordered a body of cavalry to sally forth and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and many more were trampled to death ”

“ It is a bad affair if the officer is under the necessity of using his weapons and wounding or killing the recruit.
Care must be taken, also, that the recruit be not an over match for his guard. Every stout, well-built, bold-faced recruit must be closely watched, and it may even become necessary to double the guard. ”

“ The bravest and the best are usually the first to fall; the boldest and most venturesome the most liable to capture. Perhaps, if the Emperor had broken up his guard and distributed the veterans among the raw troops, the effect might have been better, but in that case he would have destroyed his main reliance in his army. No, it was better to keep the guard together at all hazards. It had already been drawn heavily upon for officers for other corps.
War was popularly supposed to be a thing of dashing adventure, of victory, and plunder. ”

“ I have no cause to love you [it ran] , but God forbid that you should fall into the power of the duke. Accept no invitations of his. Go nowhere without a large guard—a regiment is not too much to make you safe. Show this, if you can, to him who reigns in Strelsau.
"Why doesn't it say 'the king'?" asked Flavia, leaning over my shoulder, so that the ripple of her hair played on my cheek. "Is it a hoax?"
"As you value life, and more than life, my queen," I said, " obey it to the very letter. A regiment shall camp round your house to-day. See that you do not go out unless well guarded." ”

“ It is much to be deplored that the King's troops should be employed in a duty of such a revolting nature, which brings them into hostile contact with the poor inhabitants of their own country; it is certainly no very agreeable, and it might be added, honourable employment, for any officer to be a gauger's whipper-in, or for his party to be the advanced guard of an excise officer, or deputy assistant carriers of potteen whiskey. ”

“ Now the Prussian horsemen, the Death-head Hussars, added their weight to Vandeleur's and Vivian's swordsmen and lancers. Other regiments supplemented the withering fire of the advancing Fifty-second and the reserve brigades. Now, at last, the Guard began to give back. Slowly, reluctantly, clinging to their positions, fighting, firing, savage, mad—they began to give way.
"Tout est perdu," whispered Napoleon.
"The Guard retreats!" cried someone near the Emperor.
"La Garde recule!" rose here and there from the battlefield. "La Garde recule!" Men caught up the cry in wonder and despair. ”

“ Here come the voltigeurs of Bernadotte's brigade; see how the fellows preserve their ancient repute, cheering and laughing,—ever the same, whether roistering at midnight in the Faubourg St. Antoine or rushing madly upon the ranks of the enemy! There are the dragoons of Nansouty, who charged the Imperial Guard of Russia; see the proud line that floats on their banner, “All wounded by the sabre!” And here come the cuirassiers of the Guard, with a detachment of their own as escort; how splendidly they look in the bright sun, and how proudly they come! ”

“ For in spite of everything we were not conquered; the cuirassiers still held their position on the plateau, and from all sides over the thunder of cannon, over all the tumult, the cry was heard, "The Guard is coming!" Yes, the Guard was coming at last! We could see them in the distance on the highway, with their high bear-skin caps, advancing in good order.
Those who have never witnessed the arrival of the Guard on the battle-field, can never know the confidence which is inspired by a body of tried soldiers; the kind of respect paid to courage and force. ”

“ The week after the National Guard of the city of Paris had been called into service, the chiefs of the twelve legions and the general staff were admitted to take the oath of fidelity at the Emperor's hands. The National Guard had already been organized into legions; but the want of arms was keenly felt, and many citizens could procure only lances, and those who could not obtain guns or buy them found themselves thereby chilled in their ardor to equip themselves. ”

“ At the sight of him, the Grenadiers raised their caps on the points of their swords and bayonets, and there were cries of "Vive le Roi!" the last that saluted him in his hereditary palace. Even at this cry, numbers of the National Guard took alarm, imagining that they were to be surrendered to the knights of the dagger, and that they had been betrayed. The gunners, joining in the panic, turned their guns towards the palace, but the more faithful Guard drove them from the guns, disarmed them, and put them under watch. ”

“ Those who mount guard or handle dispatches for the Emperor and the officials in Byzantium, or who perform any other service whatsoever, are assigned at first to the lowest ranks, and as time goes on they advance steadily to fill the places of those who have died or retired, and each of them keeps moving up from the rank he has held until such time as he mounts the topmost step and attains to the highest attainable point of this career. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What antics they cut! Never had a man such slaves at his feet. I was set upon a horse immediately, and had a guard at the head and tail of him. The officer saluted until his arm must have been weary. He had caught the Emperor—what a night!
Our way lay over the snows to the Cossack camp upon the far side. Behind me there shone the lights of the house I had quitted, bright stars beyond a frozen sea. I knew that the next hour would find me in the Russian general's tent, and that my shrift must be short. What mattered the regiment of hussars the Emperor was to send? ”

“ Such too was the well-appointed chivalry of the military orders, and the organized militia of the hermandad, which we find sometimes supplying a body of ten thousand men for the service. To these may be added the splendid throng of cavaliers and hidalgos, who swelled the retinues of the sovereigns and the great nobility. The king was attended in battle by a body-guard of a thousand knights, one-half light, and the other half heavy armed, all superbly equipped and mounted, and trained to arms from childhood, under the royal eye. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No other call to duty is so truly a test of military readiness as that in connection with a fire, coming as it does always without the slightest previous warning. And no other duty, performed as the 1st Regiment performed it in 1872, does so much to win friends for the organization, and for the National Guard of which it forms a part. At no other time does the National Guardsman appear so nearly in his true rôle, as “a soldier of peace.” ”

“ Out of the smoke and mist opposite the English soldiers of the Royal Guard came their Imperial enemies. The waiting British saw the black bearskins of the tall Guard, the imperial insignia on cross-belts and uniforms. They were so near that they could see the grim faces of the old soldiers, their mustaches working, their lips drawn back over their teeth, snarling, sputtering like savage beasts. Here and there mouths were tight shut in a firm line. Here and there men came silently, but mostly they were yelling. ”

“ Every hour of the day and night there keeps watch over it an old soldier. He is armed and equipped as if for battle, in the uniform of the old Fifth Regiment of the Line, somehow temporarily incorporated in the Imperial Guard as a supplementary regiment of the Grenadiers thereof. The black gaiters, the white trousers, the blue and scarlet coat, with its crossed belts and brilliant decorations, the lofty bearskin head-dress, are all strangely in keeping with the relic and its surroundings. ”

“ Just as it may be remarked at the present day, of a certain exclusive portion of our own military service, so the unusual richness of the young officer’s appointments, as contrasted with those of the legionaries, denoted him to be one of the Pretorian Guard, the household troops, lately gathered into a permanent camp at Rome, and brought fairly into a position for entering on their future famous career in the affairs of the city and empire. ”

“ The noise attracted also the Judge and the Commissary, and there were now six officials in all, including the guard, all surrounding the General, a sufficiently imposing force to overawe even the most recalcitrant fire-eater.
But now the General seemed to see only the comic side of the situation, and he burst out laughing.
“What, all of you? How many more? Why not bring up cavalry and artillery, horse, foot, and guns?” he asked, derisively. “All to prevent one old man from offering his services to one weak woman! ”

“ The Guard is sent only where there is supreme work to be done. If you hear that it has been hurled into a charge you may rest assured that it is striving to gain something on which Germany sets the highest price—for the life-blood of the Guard is the dearest that she can pay. ”

“ It was on January 23, 1813, that, wearing the uniform of the National Guard, the King of Rome was carried by Madame de Montesquiou into the Salle des Maréchaux in the Tuileries, which was filled with the officers of the regiment. The Emperor signed to the governess to put the child on the ground, and, placing him by his side, advanced with the Empress into the middle of the room. 'I am on the eve of starting to lead my army to fresh victories,' he said, 'and I leave my wife and son to your care. Will you defend them? Say! will you defend them? ”

“ We shall thus have a nation built of stone and mortar, capable of resisting the attacks both of time and men. I will moreover raise the national guard to a level with the regiments of the line: the old retired officers shall be the chiefs and the fathers of the corps. ”

“ When he had also crossed this piece of water, he selected the choice guard of cavalry, and the best men from the other cavalry regiments, and brought them up from column into line on the right wing. [3] In front of all the cavalry he posted the horse-archers, and placed next to the cavalry in front of the other infantry the royal shield-bearing guards under the command of Seleucus. Near these he placed the royal foot-guard, and next to these the other shield-bearing guards, as each happened at the time to have the right of precedence. ”

“ Inside of two months we had 4,000 men at the front, where the French Higher Command was so well impressed with their quality that it was but a week or two before they were deemed worthy of the place of honour in an attack upon the Prussian Guard, which had been pressing steadily forward in the hope of cutting the communications between Chalons and Verdun. No regiment ever had a warmer baptism of fire. ”

“ If the Vanguard is held up by the enemy who is ascertained to be inferior in strength to the Advanced Guard, the commander will transmit information to the Main Body and will attack vigorously to disperse the enemy, in order that the movements of the Main Body may not be delayed. ”

“ During the Russian campaign he once again commanded the Guard, taking part in all the hard fighting of the advance and also in the horrors of the retreat. Though in his fifty-eighth year the tough old soldier marched on foot every mile of the way from Moscow to the Vistula, and shared the privations of his men, watching over his beloved Emperor, his little "tondu de caporal," with the care of a woman, himself [330] mounting guard over him at night and surrounding him with picked men of the Guard. ”