Note 15 — Chapter II · 1844—1849

Garde Nationale. A city militia, intended to preserve order and to maintain municipal liberties; it was improvised in 1789, and its first Colonel was General Lafayette, of American Independence fame. Its cockade united the King’s white to the Paris colours, blue and red, and thus was inaugurated the celebrated Tricolour.

The National Guard was preserved by the Restoration, but Charles X disbanded it as being dangerously Liberal in its tendencies. It re-formed itself of its own accord in 1830, and helped to overthrow the elder branch of Bourbon. It proved a source of disorder in 1848 and was reorganized under the second Empire, but, having played an active and disastrous part in the Commune (1871), it was disarmed and finally suppressed. [Trans.]