Editing Swiss Guards (section)

===During the Revolution===
[[File:Tuileriensturm.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Massacre of the Swiss Guards]]
[[File:Tuileries Henri Motte.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Swiss Guards on the grand staircase of the palace during the [[10 August (French Revolution)|storming of the Tuileries]]]]
The most famous episode in the history of the Swiss Guards was their defence of the [[Tuileries Palace]] in central Paris during the [[French Revolution]]. Of the nine hundred Swiss Guards defending the palace on [[Insurrection of 10 August 1792|10 August 1792]], about six hundred were killed during the fighting or massacred after they surrendered. One group of sixty Swiss were taken as prisoners to the [[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Paris City Hall]] before being killed by the crowd there.<ref name="auto">M.J Sydenham, page 111, "The French Revolution", B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1965</ref> 

An estimated one hundred and sixty more died in prison of their wounds, or were killed during the [[September Massacres]] that followed. Apart from less than a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, some hidden by sympathetic Parisians, the only survivors of the regiment were a three-hundred-strong<ref>{{cite book|first=Louis-|last=Philippe|page=[https://archive.org/details/louisphilippemem00loui/page/247 247]|title=Memoirs 1773-1791|year=1977|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |isbn=0-15-158855-4|url=https://archive.org/details/louisphilippemem00loui/page/247}}</ref> detachment that had been sent to Normandy to escort grain convoys a few days before 10 August.<ref name="auto1">Jerome Bodin, page 259, "Les Suisses au Service de la France", {{ISBN|2-226-03334-3}}</ref>  

The Swiss officers were mostly massacred, although Major [[Karl Josef von Bachmann]], in command at the Tuileries, was formally tried and guillotined in September, still wearing his red uniform coat.  Two Swiss officers, the captains Henri de Salis and Joseph Zimmermann survived, and went on to reach a senior rank under Napoleon and the Restoration.<ref name="auto1"/>

[[File:Luzern asv2022-10 Löwendenkmal img2.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|left|The ''[[Lion Monument]]'' in Lucerne, dedicated to the Swiss Guard who died in Paris. The incised [[Latin]] may be translated, "To the loyalty and courage of the Swiss".]]

There appears to be no truth in the charge that Louis XVI caused the defeat and destruction of the Guards by ordering them to lay down their arms when they could still have held the Tuileries.  Rather, the Swiss ran low on ammunition and were overwhelmed by superior numbers when fighting broke out spontaneously after the royal family were escorted from the palace to take refuge with the [[National Assembly (France)|National Assembly]]. A note written by the King has survived that ordered the Swiss to retreat from the palace and return to their barracks, but they only did so after their position became untenable.<ref>{{cite book|first=Didier|last=Davin|page=7|title=Officers and Soldiers of Allied Swiss Troops in French Service 1785-1815|year=2012|publisher=Amber Books Limited |isbn=978-2-35250-235-7}}</ref>

The regimental standards were secretly buried by the [[adjutant]] shortly before the regiment was summoned to the Tuileries on the night of 8/9 August, indicating that he foresaw the likely end. They were discovered by a gardener and ceremoniously burned by the new Republican authorities on 14 August.<ref>{{cite book|first=Didier|last=Davin|page=7|title=Officers and Soldiers of Allied Swiss Troops in French Service 1785-1815|year=2012|publisher=Amber Books Limited |isbn=978-2-35250-235-7}}</ref> The barracks of the Guard at [[Courbevoie]] were stormed by the local National Guard and the few Swiss still on duty there were also killed.<ref name="auto1"/>

The heroic but futile<ref name="auto"/> stand of the Swiss is commemorated by [[Bertel Thorvaldsen]]'s ''[[Lion Monument]]'' in [[Lucerne]], dedicated in 1821, which shows a dying lion collapsed upon broken symbols of the French monarchy. An inscription on the monument lists the twenty-six Swiss officers who died on 10 August and 2–3 September 1792, and records that approximately 760 Swiss Guardsmen were killed on those days.<ref>{{cite web
 | url= http://www.gletschergarten.ch/en/info/2_loewe/1.html
 | title= Lion Monument Inscriptions
 | publisher= Glacier Garden, Lucerne
 | access-date= 2008-08-08
 | archive-date= 6 July 2011
 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110706232631/http://www.gletschergarten.ch/en/info/2_loewe/1.html
 | url-status= dead
 }}</ref>
[[File:Prise du Louvre, le 29 juillet 1830, massacre des gardes suisses.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Swiss Guards during the [[July Revolution]] of 1830]]