Origines et carrières au sein de la compagnie écossaise des gardes du corps du roi Louis XV (1722-1774)

The Scottish Company is one of the king’s four bodyguard companies. As an elite unit of the King’s Military Household, it served both temporarily in war and permanently at the king’s side to ensure his honour and security. Its prestige was such that it attracted a large number of young men from nobl...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Thomas Fressin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles 2025-03-01
Series:Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/crcv/39658
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Summary:The Scottish Company is one of the king’s four bodyguard companies. As an elite unit of the King’s Military Household, it served both temporarily in war and permanently at the king’s side to ensure his honour and security. Its prestige was such that it attracted a large number of young men from noble families or who lived off their private income, who came either to make a career there or to serve for a short time while awaiting promotion within the royal army. Drawing on new sources and techniques from the digital humanities, this article uses a prosopographical database of over 1,500 guards to study the careers of the guards and their officers, from their recruitment to the end of their service. The analysis and visualizsation of the data refines the conclusions drawn by Jean-François Labourdette in 1984 in an article on the same subject, while also making a number of new observations.
ISSN:1958-9271