Guardroom

A room set apart for the accommodation of guards; also, a place of temporary con tine ment of soldiers. Guards, n . pl . ( Mil . ) The term applied to those troops especially attached to the person of a sovereign, or chief ruler of a state. Body - guards have been an inseparable accompaniment of monarchy from the earliest ages; the A yrian and Persian kings employed them, and the corps of Argyraspides , or "silver-shields," were selected by Alexander out of the bravest men of his army. The Roman emperors had their Prætori an guard . Napoleon I. first created a small troop of body-guards, with the title of Guides , while he was yet only general, in his first Italian campaign. From this arose by degrees the great institution of the Imperial Guard , consolidated in 1804, which ten years later comprised 102,708 men, and after being disbanded by Louis XVIII. in 1815, was restored by Napoleon III. in 1854. It consists of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In England, the Guards (otherwise called household troops ) consist of two regiments of Life -Guards, the royal regiment of Horse Guards, and 3 regiments of Foot -Guards. Many of the European sovereigns before the French revolution had small corps of foreign troops which served in this capacity. Thus the French had, in former times, the Guard of Scottish Archers , and at a later period, a body of Swi guards, called the Cent Sui es. The Cent Gardes formed by Napoleon III. are founded upon the latter. The Pope still retains his Swi guards. In Pru ia there is both infantry and cavalry of the guard, and the Ru ian imperial guard forms an entire corps d'armée, 50,000 strong. See NATIONAL GUARD; YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, . Guard'-ship, n. ( Naval . ) In England, a large ship of war on harbor duty, appointed to protect unarmed ve els lying at anchor in the port.