Gardes Suisses, a celebrated corps of the French army, formed in 1616 for defence of royalty, and numbering 2000. During the great Revolution they gallantly defended the Louvre, but were overawed and overpowered almost to annihilation by the infuriated Paris mob. “Their work to die, and they did it,” at that moment. The corps was finally disbanded in 1830.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Garde Nationale * Gardiner, Colonel James