National Guard

National Guard. The French National Guard was organised in the first year of the Revolution (July, 1789). It was intended primarily for the defence of the capital, and was placed under the control not of the Crown, but of the municipality of Paris. Bodies of this kind already existed in some of the provincial towns. The Paris guard numbered 48,000 citizens at the outset, and soon afterwards the total number engaged in the defence of the kingdom was nearly 300,000. The National Guard was finally abolished in 1870.