Les Suisses Au Service De La France 1715-1820

Honour and fidelity

Very early on, Switzerland set up a real mercenary business. By capitulations each canton could recruit military units on behalf of a neighbouring state with their own officers and rules. The French Revolution encountered the loyalty of the Swiss in the service of the King of France. The infamous massacre of the Swiss Guard on 10 August 1792 in the Tuileries was the bloodiest. After that the Swiss regiments in the infantry of the Line were disbanded. France, reorganised Europe between 1793 and 1813, and transformed Switzerland which supplied, not always in the best conditions, its neighbour with troops of great worth to the Revolution and to the Empire. This book deals with the Swiss troops which served the Monarchy, the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire and the Second Empire.