Victor von Gibelin

His father was Heinrich Daniel von Gibelin (1726–1783), a Swiss military officer in French service and a politician in Solothurn.

In 1789, the Baron de Besenval was appointed Commandant en chef of the troops brought to Paris to suppress the riots which had been going on for some time.

After 14 July 1789, Victor von Gibelin transferred to the Company de Besenval of the Swiss Guards in the same military rank, but in the function of an Officier-Major.

On 10 August 1792, as Sous-Aide-Major, he commanded a battalion of the Swiss Guards during the Storming of the Palais des Tuileries, where he narrowly escaped death.

When the guests were already sitting at the table in the dining room, the baron appeared, wrapped in a white cloth like the stone statue in Don Juan, and said in a sepulchral voice: "The commander's shadow visits you."

Delighted with his successful joke, the baron greeted his guests before retreating – marked by weakness – to his bedroom, leaning on Victor von Gibelin.

""Le Suisse le plus français qui ait jamais été" (the most French Swiss ever), as Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve once called Pierre Victor, Baron de Besenval, was buried on 6 June 1791 in the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, the church of his family's gravesite.

The prince had heard the story of the two shipwrecked officers of the Swiss Guards Regiment and was curious to find out the latest information from revolutionary France.

The two hoped that the Field Commander could help them, that they could join the troops of Charles-Philippe de France, Comte d'Artois.

Finally, with a lot of luck and the help of fellow soldiers in Germany, Victor von Gibelin and Anton von Glutz-Ruchti, endangering their lives as they were pursued by revolutionary troops, arrived via Königstein, Butzbach, Giessen, Marburg, Hersfeld, Nuremberg, Ulm, Stockach to Lenzburg in Switzerland at the beginning of the year 1793.

It was only after his return to Solothurn that Victor von Gibelin learned that King Louis XVI had died under the guillotine on 21 January 1793.

Victor von Gibelin, chalk drawing by Henri-Pierre Danloux , portrayed in Paris in 1791, probably at the Hôtel de Besenval . This portrait was painted at the same time as that of his friend Pierre Victor, Baron de Besenval de Brunstatt , usually just referred to as Baron de Besenval (the suffix Brunstatt refers to the former barony).
July 1789: The Baron de Besenval's troops in the courtyard of the École militaire on the Champ de Mars , consisting of the Swiss regiments de Diesbach , de Châteauvieux and de Salis-Samade with Victor von Gibelin as well as the French hussar regiments de Berchény and de Chamborant . After the Taking of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 by the revolutionaries, the baron's troops hastily withdrew on the night of 14 to 15 July.
The dining room of the Hôtel de Besenval . It was in 1782, when the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart , commissioned by the Baron de Besenval, transformed the Grand cabinet into what was then a novelty: A dining room in the neoclassical style . [ 11 ] [ 12 ]
The order to surrender hastily written on a random piece of paper, signed by King Louis XVI . It says: "The king orders the Swiss to withdraw to their barracks. He is in the National Assembly. Paris, 10 August 1792." The royal family was then arrested and the Swiss troops loyal to the king were persecuted. Up to 700 of them were literally slaughtered by the revolutionaries. On 13 August, the royal family was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple . Major Karl Josef von Bachmann , who directly commanded the 900 Swiss Guards at the Palais des Tuileries, was sentenced to death and executed by guillotine on 3 September 1792.