[2] American author Mark Twain praised the sculpture of a mortally wounded lion as "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.

A note written by the King, half an hour after firing had commenced, has survived, ordering the Swiss to retire and return to their barracks.

[8] Apart from about a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, the only survivors of the regiment were a 300 strong detachment which had been sent to Normandy (under the king's orders) to escort grain convoys a few days before August 10.

[9] The Swiss officers were mostly amongst those massacred, although Major Karl Josef von Bachmann — in command at the Tuileries — was formally tried and guillotined in September, still wearing his red uniform of the Guard.

This book created a strong reaction throughout conservative circles in Switzerland, which motivated him to organize a public subscription to finance a commemorative monument.

[6] He commissioned Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen to design the image, and contracted stonemason Lukas Ahorn to fashion the monument in a former sandstone quarry near Lucerne.

[6] It immediately elicited a combination of praise, national pride, and public criticism, with some displeased that a monument was built to honor Swiss citizens dying for a foreign monarchy.

[6] In 1880, Mark Twain wrote of the monument: The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff—for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff.