THE DEFENSE OF THE TUILERIES BY THE ON AUGUST i0, 1792 By Ev~rt van Muydmn. THE LION gF Known also as ’tthe Monument of the Lion," it commemorates the valiant battle of the Swiss Guard and the revolutionaries on August lO, 1792. It is carved out of the rock behind a deep, green pool. An immense lion, tho wounded, with a spear shaft broken off and protruding from his body, he valiantly crawled into his grotto to die. The agony of pain was captured so viv- idly by the~Danish sculptor, Thorwaldsen, who made the original model and L. Ahorn who actually carved it in 1819-21, that i t is known to have been called "the most moving piece of sculp- ture ever seen." The grotto measures-13 meters, the lion nine. The inscription above the lion means "To the Fidelity and the Bravery of the Swiss." Copyright: O. SBsli-Jenny, Thalwil-Z~rich, . By Permission. 12 lives, ordered the remaining officers and men to surrender their weapons. This was the death warrant for 150 men. The original of this order is now at the museum of Carnavalet. Fifty men of the General Company had refused this order and, together with a few men from other units, tried to make a dash back to the Tuileries and to rejoin the rest. Only a handful made it; the rest were cut down. At the Tuileries the battle was in full force° The Revol~ utionaries had the place under heavy artillery fire. One at~ tack followed another; the odds then were one Swiss against a hundred. The ~mm~tion was ru~ng out and the resistance was growing weaker. Every defender knew now that the king was not in the palace ~nd that further struggle was futile. Some tried do break out thru the gardens: everyone was on his own. Finally, the mob broke into the main entrance of the palace and then the battle turned into butchery. Everyone inside the Tuileries was cut to pieces, from a kitchen-boy to old nursemaids, and their corpses were thrown out the windows. This job was taken over by the lowest kind of rabble of Paris. Heads of the dead Swiss were cut off and stuck on pikes and paraded thru the city. Drunks lay beside the wounded and the corpses. The entire city was in the hands of the mob. No res- pectable citizen dared walk the streets. Honest Frenchmen were disgusted by such brutality and, to demonstrate their disapproval~ they hid Swiss Guardists in their cellars and attics, risking their own lives by doing so, because French- men who were caught hiding a Swiss were declared enemies of and were executed without delay. 0nly 368 Swiss Guards had escaped. Most of them later joined forces that fought , to avenge their fallen comrades. One story has it that during the fighting at the Tuileries, the drunken mob paraded around~ waving a captured battalion colors of the Swiss Guard. A drummer boy of the Guards seized the opportunity to recapture it, but could not wrestle it out of the hands of a woman before others rushed up to repel him. The boy~ in desperation, fled with only a piece of the banner which came off in his hands. This piece was later carried into the Battle of Waterloo by four Swiss battalions from Lucerne who shared in bringing the downfall of Napoleon. Commander Jost yon Durler, who seemed to be in~ vincible at the Tuileries, died as the commander of the foreign brigade that was serving with the British forces at Alexandria, on September 18, 1802. The medal awarded for this action is called the Iron Medal for Loyalty and Honor. It is round, made of iron with a silve~ rim of one mm. and a silver suspension ring; the total diam- eter is 28mm. Obverse: The Swiss Cross on a shield, surroun- ded by the words "TREUE UND EHRE" (Loyalty and Honor). Rev.~ "X AUGUST MDCCXCII" (lO August 1792) within a laurel wreath. The ribbon is red with the cross in white and I mm white edges. Most of the medals are named, the names being engraved on the silver rim. Since the medal was awarded 25 whole years after the action, the eligible recipients were contacted thru notices in Swiss papers. The next-cf-kin were also entitled to the medal, on presenting adequate proof. Revue Suisse de Numis- mati~ue, for 1909, ppo 310-321, lists the names of 345 Guards who were awarded the medal. The rest of the heroes were never located° The complete list of the 900 Guards who fought at the Tuileries can be found in the Swiss Government Archives. IS