In the France of the Ancien Régime, it was customary for important people to be escorted by soldiers who assured their safety. Members of these personal guards were richly garbed and well armed. Considered elite soldiers, they also played a protocolary and ceremonial role. In New France, protocol was obviously more modest and the governor general did not have a personal guard until 1665, when the first guard arrived in the country - that of the Marquis de Tracy.
The escort of Marquis Prouville de Tracy, lieutenant general and governor of French America, was composed of a troop of seventeen "men of war" commanded by a captain, a lieutenant and a cornet (a sub-lieutenant who carried the company standard). When the Marquis walked through the streets, he was accompanied by a whole cortege: preceding him were four pages and his guards, and following up in the rear would be several officers under the command of the guard captain, the Chevalier de Chaumont, who was also the Marquis' confidant and aide-de-camp. The Marquis de Tracy returned to France with his guard in 1667.
In 1672, the appointment of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, corresponded to the permanent establishment of guards assigned to the governor general of New France. Up to the end of the French Regime, the official guard was "a company of twenty men of war [...] called carabineers" that included a captain, a lieutenant and a cornet. The guards in Canada did not have horses, and since their pay came out of the governor general's stipend, their number varied depending on the size of the governor general's fortune. After the end of the 17th century, there were usually no more than two or three guards along with the captain, who acted as the governor general's aide-de-camp. The wealthy Marquis de la Jonquière was an exception: he landed in Quebec City on August 4, 1749, with great pomp, preceded by an impressively large company of guards. The Governor General's Guards disbanded in 1760.
