Massacre of the Swiss Guards 1792 - painting finally started!

[Patrice]

Fascinating project, I'll follow it with interest. 

I sometimes went to walk in the Parc des Tuileries as a kid and teenager, I didn't know much then about this event, I only heard about it much time later.

[traveller]

I thought that the defining moment was when the King himself ordered the Swiss to cease firing as he wanted to spare the lives of the mob?  The Swiss ordered arms and the Mob then promptly massacred them.  Or is that not what happened?

As described on: https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/attack-on-the-tuileries/


By dawn on August 10th, a crowd of several thousand people was massing outside the Tuileries. Newcomers arrived so quickly from the sections that according to one news report 25 people were killed in the crush. Most of the crowd were carrying some kind of weapon: guns, sabres, pikes, daggers, scythes, iron bars and pieces of wood.

After surveying the situation, the king concluded that it was impossible to defend the palace without slaughtering thousands of Parisians. Leaving orders with the guard, Louis and his family walked across the Tuileries garden and took refuge in the Legislative Assembly building.

Back inside the palace, rebellious soldiers and civilians breached the palace gates and poured into the Tuileries courtyard. Exactly happened next is a matter of dispute. Whatever the cause, members of the mob and advancing fédérés engaged in a pitched battle with the Swiss Guard. The Swiss held them off until around midday when their ammunition ran out and they were overrun.

Swiss Guards butchered
What followed was a scene of tremendous butchery. More than two-thirds of the Swiss Guard were slaughtered, many of them hacked to death by axe-wielding sans culottes. Heads were removed and displayed on pikes or kicked around for sport. Body parts were dismembered and waved around, then fed to dogs.

Hordes of women from the city’s underclass followed behind the advancing soldiers, stripping the corpses of Swiss Guardsmen of their uniforms and belongings, scything off the genitals and stuffing them into their mouths.

Courtiers and palace staff were not spared either. By the end of the day, some 650 Swiss Guards were dead, while the remaining 250 were captured, beaten and thrown into the city’s prisons. Four weeks later, almost all of the guards who survived the carnage of August 10th were killed during the September Massacres.

[traveller]

my idea of scenario is partially historical cause if you play it as it happened is a no no situation with poor game appeal...during the Tuilleries assault the King and his familiy had already escaped to the Assemblée Nationale so the sacrifice of the Gardes Suisses was an  unexpected or should i say  vain episode of honour and the consequence also of an unexpected blast of rage from the mob..the Swiss and the Gentilhommes defended an empty palace maybe just a symbol...the nobles and retainers  were about 200 they had little part in the fight and, contrary to the Swiss Gardes succeeded in abandoning the Tuilleries palace and  gardens unsditurbed while the mob dwelled on the Swiss rounding up and executing the last ones that tried to surrender...among the defenders also some loyal Gardes Nationales de Paris above all officers...
The Royal Allmand of course did'nt show up...by this time they had been practically cancelled as they were now labelled "15ème de Cavalerie"...but i had the idea to consider them for a what if scenario because they had already charged at the beginning of the Revolution, and even in the Tuilleries Gardens, the Parisian mob ...and, together with the survivors of the Swiss Guards, many of them later joined the Royalist Armies of both Prince of Condé and later the Vendeans...so i have a certain simpathy for them ..being one the most iconic anti revolutionary elements...
just my thought but outside real big set up battles French Revolution has a certain pulp aspect that could be reproduded on table top skirmish or  role-playing games even with few  miniatures and Tuilleries could be such an example cause it's difficult, outside a skirmish what if game, to find an historical objective.
this French old series is  not bad

Considering that the King was no longer present, my initial thought was that the objective for the Swiss should be to save their colours through a figthing retreat through the gardens. I have yet to find a good map of the gardens but if the one below is a fair representation, then there are scope for a good skirmish battle among the alleys and trees...

[italwars]

I thought that the defining moment was when the King himself ordered the Swiss to cease firing as he wanted to spare the lives of the mob?  The Swiss ordered arms and the Mob then promptly massacred them.  Or is that not what happened?

From what i read..the King was'nt there to give any orders to the Swiss..even the Comander of the Gardes Suisses Regiment was'nt there...just before the event he sent an officer saying that he was ill and at bed  appointing so a second in command to lead the Guards in duty at the Tuilleries ..the old TV series that i posted depicted correctly the event as i compared by read ing other articles and books...some "arretez le feu" or probably same order  in German were heard at the beginning of the clash...which spark according to various versions had been atributed to an unknow shot from the palace or , more probably, from a fédéré Marseillais of a volunteer battallion that had supported from the beginning the mob....those Swiss had been quite unlucky--- massacrated at the Bastille just to defend an empty prison or at least without any "political prisoners" as thought by the mob ..and then massacrated at the Tuilleries with the King already gone to the Assemblée Nationale very early in the morning..probably just after his last and unsucseful review at 5 am to try to rally the now unreliable "Garde Nationale de Paris"..

[Baron von Wreckedoften]

Thanks for the replies - understand it much better now.

[Roo]

There are some figures from Foundry for sale (not mine) on the forum this very night!

[italwars]

Baron...the "stop firing" that you probably are referring to  was given by the poor  Marquis de Launay, the irresolute  comandant of the Bastille,, after useless pour-parlez, not only  in order to avoid casualties among civilians and  cause the reliability of the soldiers that had to fire was uncertain but because, according to some sources, the comandant had already lost his head andself- control before the attack..the forces at his disposal was composed of invalides soldiers stiffed by some devoted 30 Swiss Gardes but equipped with already loaded cannons .The commander of the Bastille was hoping for reinforcments that had been promised  .unfortunatly his act of clemency and good will was countered not only  by the mean mob assaulting the bastille  but also by a unit of the  crack but treacherous Gardes Francaises arriving on the scene only to support the populace and fire at the Bastille defenders  ..Bastille could be another wargame scenario with defined historical objectives such as ..the mob aiming at purchasing powder and muskets and free prisoners unaware that the prison was empty and the terrified French defenders and few Swiss  to save their lifes..a typical assimetrical clash

[traveller]

Can you recommend any 28mm suitable to represent the Gardes Francaises in 1792? I get a bit confused re the different French uniform models by the end of the 18th century...

[Romark]

Can you recommend any 28mm suitable to represent the Gardes Francaises in 1792? I get a bit confused re the different French uniform models by the end of the 18th century...

Wouldn't the Perry French from their AWI range pass(they have pack packs  )

[Rochejaquelein]

Can you recommend any 28mm suitable to represent the Gardes Francaises in 1792? I get a bit confused re the different French uniform models by the end of the 18th century...

Emperor Toads Emporium covers the whole gamut. I only have their Vendee rebels, but I am very pleased with their quality.
https://emperortoadsemporium.co.uk/store?productlist-search=&productlist-sort=created-desc&productlist-categories=reign-of-terror

[traveller]

I ordered the Swiss Guards and National Guard from Emperor Toad so I hope I have them covered, but for Garde  Francaises I have failed to nail down the exact uniform and suitable miniatures. As I understand it France introduced new uniform regulations for infantry very frequently by the end of the century in 1776, 1779, 1786, 1791 and 1792  Although the Garde was disbanded in 1789 I would assume they kept their old uniforms when they potentially joined the mob at the Tuiliries in 1792?

[italwars]

The Gardes Francaises uniform was the most elaborated...lapels ecc...iIn the next days, time permitting, i'll scan some very accurate plates from a good book and ll post them...about suitable minis, at the moment i'm thiking about the Swiss Guards from Emperor Tod as their tunic is also richly elaborated and also about  the Piedmontese, made again by Emperor Tod, Eureka and Mirliton  whose old fashioned uniform could be useful for converting into Gardes...
for a broad idea, for the moment, see this contemporary picture about the Gardes Francaises familiarising with civilians and carried to the Assemblée Nationale.

[traveller]

Great image you posted, quite different from this one supposed to show the Garde francaises in 1789

[italwars]

In my opinion quite similar to the your and the following other images ..just a slightly simplified version ..the images refers from 1785 up to 1789 ..see also, in my opinion and despite the colour, the acceptable similarity at least if you think about the result on a 28mm of the Gardes suisses images
Sorry I didn’t manage to post images in the right version ..problem with iPhone compability

[traveller]

Great images! Many thanks! Now we only need to find the best proxy