LIGHT HORSES OF THE ORDINARY GUARD OF THE KING

This company was older than that of the gendarmes. The registers date back to 1588 and it was Filhet, Lord of the Curée, who commanded it in the army of the King of Navarre.

When Henry, become King of France, created the company of gendarmes of the guard, he proposed to his Navarre light horses to call them gendarmes; they preferred to keep a name which they had illustrated by their fearlessness. The privileges, offices, jobs, ranks, etc., were equivalent to those of the gendarmes. They passed the second, but the recruitment, the favors, the treatment were similar for the two companies. In this corps there were 72 boarders also called appointed captains. These were the 72 oldest light horses that received a pension of 300 pounds from the king. The captain-lieutenant admitted only the postulants who were all officers who had already served. In the buildings that the king had offered them at Versailles, an academy had been installed where many infantry and cavalry officers came, for a year, to perfect themselves in the arts of fencing, horse riding, military knowledge, theoretical and practical. These officers then donned the company uniform and counted as supernumeraries, with no pay other than that of their rank.

The king, as captain, always kept the company banners in his room, and every day a light horse came to take the word from his mouth.

It was also as a captain that he equipped, dressed and mounted the timpanist and the 4 trumpets. The grand squire was therefore to see to their maintenance and provide them every two years with a complete livery.

The costume of the light horses was the same as that of the gendarmes, except that the buttons were silver and the buttonholes were edged in silver.

Kings Louis XIV and Louis XV usually wore the costume of light horse captain in war.

The armament was the same as for the gendarmerie of France, the rifle with forced bullet, 2 pistols, a saber and a blackened breastplate niellated with silver and gold. The officers were mounted on gray horses.

After the 7-years war or the company was completely decimated, and was reduced to 50 men in 1776, was suppressed in 1787.