Fun Fact: The French Monarchs used to have a Swiss Guard (Cent Suisse). Here’s a painting of them defending the Tuileries Palace against revolutionaries in 1792.
Fun Fact: The French Monarchs used to have a Swiss Guard (Cent Suisse). Here’s a painting of them defending the Tuileries Palace against revolutionaries in 1792.
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>Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti
This is pretty common knowledge. I guess most Swiss people (and probably all on reddit) know about the Lion Monument in Lucerne.
Defending the French monarchy wasn’t our proudest moment
Who’s who?
Is it also the time when singing Le Ranz Des Vaches was forbidden for mercenaries?
I’d argue its a picture of them diying to defend tyrants, but hey, semantics
Switzerland exported mercenaries until the late 1700 and even into 19th century… commonly known as ‚Reisläufer‘ which translates literally into ‚rice-walker‘.
The Vatican *still* has a [Swiss Guard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard).
Back in the days everyone had swiss mercenaries. Got kinda bad when they had to fight each other but hey, at least their starving family at home got some money out of it.
Lol my post got designated popular on the subreddit. I’m honoured.
But I think These arent the hundred but one of the other Swiss mercenary regiments. Or am I wrong?
Funfact: The french were absolute fucking pissheads and refused to pay alot. Thats why in lucerne, we have the swans. They where a gift from the french to calm us a bit down cause the payments were overdue.
Learned a lot about the history between french and switzerland since i moved to lucerne.
Most European countries hired Swiss mercenaries as they had a very good reputation and were feared by many. Until 1859 there was finally a law banning Swiss mercenaries to serve in foreign armies. This happened due to several battles where it was basically Swiss vs Swiss for 2 foreign countries.
See also https://www.srf.ch/article/19634118/amp
Swiss Mercenaries were one of the reasons, why France, “Germany” (HRE) and Habsburg Austria accepted and guaranteed Swiss Neutrality, because they didn’t want any of them to have sole access to them. Swiss Mercenaries were hired by all of them and they often fought each other in their names.
Thats why the Swiss is neutral since 1291. https://youtu.be/snFjkU85EqI
and then the pope got interested
Point d’argent, point de Suisse
Sadly they fought for nothing because the frensh royals already left the palast
the thing that make me laugh about our country is we were great fighters, until Napoléon If Im right, we lost and then screw it we stop the fighting once for all
very fun yes
They were super fierce! Until someone sang a ranz…
In Lucerne there is a monument to these dead Swiss guards – a lion with a spear in its side. According to legend, it was created by order of one of their comrades, who managed to survive in that massacre in the Tuileries and return to his homeland.
100 Swiss guards. I learned that one of the soldiers of the French Monarch was in my family- which further was at the basis of the “Légion étrangère”..
Why is that guy doing the Ickey Shuffle in the front left?
History is history. Proud to be Swiss!
Fun fact: Descendants of the nobility from Lucerne („Patriziergeschlechter“) meet every year on the 10th of August at the little chapel next to the Lion Monument to commemorate of the Swiss victims that defended the monarchy from the revolutionaries in Paris. The same people are voting for conservative parties in Switzerland and are proud of our „direct democracy“. The Swiss mercenaries essentially fought against the French population and against democracy.
They are still enjoying their wealth that their families acquired during the past 400 years from human trade.
We should stop sugarcoating our history.
“Swiss Guard – protecting the rich assholes, since 1792”