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March & Lions

You know that old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb? It got me thinking about something I’ve heard of but have never seen in person that I thought I’d share with you. A sort of history lesson, if you will indulge me…

There is a memorial in Lucerne, Switzerland that I would love to see someday. Normally, I’m not much of a sightseer. I could care less about ooh-ing and ah-ing over the world’s biggest ball of rubberbands, you know what I mean? But there are some things I’d like to see. This sculpture is on that rather short list. Here is the monument in question:

The story behind this monument is what touches me most. Some of you may know my family history goes back to Europe. Some of my ancestors were involved in the French Revolution (on the losing-their-heads side) and on the other side of the family I am descended from, among others, a rather infamous Swiss Guard. (Infamous in our family, at least.)

For those of you who are interested, here’s what Wiki has to say about Swiss Guards:

Swiss Guards is the name given to the Swiss soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts since the late 15th century. They are now represented in some sense by the Papal Swiss Guard. They have generally had a high reputation for discipline and loyalty to their employers. Apart from household and guard units, some formations have also served as fighting troops in the field; regular Swiss mercenary regiments served as line troops in various armies, notably those of France, Spain and Naples right up to the 19th century.

Various units of Swiss Guards have existed for hundreds of years. The earliest such detachment was the Swiss Hundred Guard’ (Cent-Garde) at the French court (1497 – 1830). This small force was complemented in 1567 by a Swiss Guard regiment. The Papal Swiss Guard in the Vatican was founded in 1506 and is the only Swiss Guard that still exists. In the 18th century several other Swiss Guards existed for periods in various European courts.

The monument at Lucerne is especially touching because it memorializes a group of Swiss Guards who fought in defense of Tuileries in Paris. They were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the palace. Mark Twain once called the sculpture of a mortally-wounded lion ”the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world,” and I have to agree. Even though I’ve never seen it in person. Someday I hope to do so.

I’m going to copy a bit of the Wiki entry here so you can get the jist of the story behind the sculpture and the bravery of the men who died fighting a mob. I’m one of the few, I guess, who think the French Revolution mobs were a sickening, disgusting affair. There’s nothing romantic about killing off everyone in sight. They went too far. They killed women and children who had nothing to do with the oppression they were fighting against. It was a sad, sad, evil period in French history.

From the early 17th century, a regiment of Swiss mercenaries had served as part of the Royal Household of France. On 6 October 1789, King Louis XVI had been forced to move with his family from the Palace of Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In June 1791 he tried to flee abroad. In the 1792 10th of August Insurrection, revolutionaries stormed the palace. Fighting broke out spontaneously after the Royal Family had been escorted from the Tuileries to take refuge with the Legislative Assembly. The Swiss ran low on ammunition and were overwhelmed by superior numbers. A note written by the King has survived, ordering the Swiss to retire and return to their barracks, but this was only acted on after their position had become untenable.

Of the Swiss Guards defending the Tuileries, more than six hundred were killed during the fighting or massacred after surrender. An estimated two hundred more died in prison of their wounds or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from about a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, the only survivors of the regiment were a 300 strong detachment which had been sent to Normandy a few days before August 10. The Swiss officers were mostly amongst those 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. However two surviving Swiss officers went on to reach senior rank under Napoleon.

The initiative to create the monument was taken by Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, an officer of the Guards who had been on leave in Lucerne at that time of the fight. He began collecting money in 1818. The monument was designed by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, and finally hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn, in a former sandstone quarry near Lucerne.

The monument is dedicated Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti (“To the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss”). The dying lion is portrayed impaled by a spear, covering a shield bearing the fleur-de-lis of the French monarchy; beside him is another shield bearing the coat of arms of Switzerland. The inscription below the sculpture lists the names of the officers, and approximate numbers of the soldiers who died (DCCLX = 760), and survived (CCCL = 350).

The pose of the lion was copied in 1894 by Thomas M. Brady (1849–1907) for his Lion of Atlanta in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.

I hope you enjoyed the history lesson.