[3] Those selected for service at Louisbourg were chosen with particular regard to their physical strength and their technical skill in the building trades, and were enlisted for six-year-periods.

Enlistment records show that the soldiers of the regiment came not only from Switzerland, but also from Germany, Denmark, Lorraine and Montbéliard.

The colonel-proprietor had entered a capitulation with the King, through the secretary of state for the navy, in which he put the regiment, its officers and men, into French service.

The capitulation was a legal contract, renewable every ten years, where the terms of both parties were carefully stipulated.

[9] The privileges of the regiment often triggered conflicts with local military and civilian authorities.

[10] The mutiny of 1744 was an expression of the foreign soldiers will to defend their special status from infringements.

The drummers wore the colonel-proprietors' livery, not the king's, and the drums were decorated with the colonel's coat of arms.