A full-length bronze of a uniformed figure seated on a naturalistic terrace modelled with stems of corn, his musket with fitted bayonet sloping at a steep angle upwards across his knee. He rests his weight on his right hand which is extended behind him. His bandaged head is vigorously modelled with long hair falling at the back of the neck, deeply hollowed eyes, frowning eyebrows and a bristling moustache. On his back he carries a fur-covered pack and roll and his bearskin cap lies behind him, the cap plate ornamented with a crowned eagle and the raised number ‘3’. His sabre lies on the ground to his left side. The raised number ‘3’ also appears on the buttons of his tunic and gaiters. Cast inscription at the foot end of the base. 

The story of this bronze is summarised in Gower's Reminiscences: 

At the close of the year 1875, passing a shop of plaster casts near the Palais Royal, I noticed two little figures of grenadiers of the old Imperial Guard – one at attention, the other presenting arms. It occurred to me how good a subject for an animated plastic work such a figure would be if treated largely and in a moment of heroic action; and at once the Old Guard at Waterloo, ‘qui meurt et ne se rend pas!’ struck my fancy. That evening I made a sketch of such a figure, and after getting every detail, down even to the buttons on the gaiters, complete; and after securing
a good model for the figure, a French soldier who had seen the fall of Sebastopol, I set to work and completed
the following spring the statue that was exhibited in the London Academy of 1877.

Gower’s manuscript diaries provide more detail, starting with the fact that he purchased the statuette of the grenadier ‘presenting arms’ and took it to Madrassi’s studio ‘where I roughed out my idea in about a foot of length in clay – [Madrassi] giving me hints and the occasional touch.’

In April 1876 Gower went in search of source material for his statue, obtaining the correct uniform from the costumier, Babin of boulevard St Denis; the soldier represented is from the 3rd regiment of Grenadiers-à-Pied de la Garde. Acknowledging his own limitations as a modeller he confided to his diary that although the statue was progressing well, ‘the face and hands are still to be done & I rather dread these.’ Work on the model continued throughout that summer, but in September there was a setback: ‘In the evening an unlucky occurence occurred in the studio. The gun of the “Old Guard” which is cast from an original flintlock, fell out of the statue’s hand, breaking it as well, into fragments. However this will be easily repaired, at least so says Madrassi.’

By 14 September Gower could pronounce the model ‘finished to all intents and purposes’, except for details of costume which he confessed would be done by ‘another hand !’ This was a ‘finisher’ called ‘Mons. Charles’, who on
6 November was busy on details such as the trampled corn of the base, and parts of the uniform. Although the overall composition is somewhat awkward, the modelling is very vigorous and confident, and great care was taken over these details. The buttons appear to have been cast from real ones.

Gower attended critics’ day before the opening of the Royal Academy exhibition in May 1877, and was gratified by a number of favourable responses to The Old Guard, from Tom Taylor, editor of Punch, the critic George Augustus Sala, and the aged J.R. Planché. Cardinal Manning subsequently wrote to congratulate the artist on having ‘translated the Dying Gladiator into modern French.’ In fact the pose of Gower’s figure seems far more reminiscent of a recumbent river god than the famous Capitoline group, but perhaps the Cardinal had in mind its common name, the ‘Dying Gaul’. At the private view, Millais and Leighton apparently added their compliments.

These plaudits encouraged Lord Ronald to sit to Leslie Ward (‘Spy’) for a caricature to be published in Vanity Fair in which he poses with The Old Guard. In his 1888 miscellany Bric-à-brac, Gower discusses the origins of the famous utterance he chose to paraphrase for his inscription. The words ‘la garde meurt; elle ne se rend pas’ are sometimes attributed to General Pierre Cambronne (1770–1842), commander of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard at Waterloo, in response to the English demand for the surrender of his corps, but Cambronne was in fact taken alive. Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables (1862) proposed that Cambronne’s response
was all together shorter, a theory that has taken root to such an extent that ‘le mot de Cambronne’ has become a euphemism for the expletive merde. Gower himself followed the majority of French official histories of Waterloo in attributing the words to General Claude-Etienne Michel, who did indeed fall on the battlefield. In 1845 Michel’s sons petitioned King Louis Philippe to prevent the inscription of the ‘réponse sublime’ on the base of a statue of Cambronne by Jean-Baptiste DeBay which was to be erected at Nantes. 

Inscribed on the side of the base are the words – attributed to General Cambronne – with which the Imperial Guard responded to British requests that they should surrender La garde meurt et ne se rends pas (the Guard dies but does not surrender). This bronze statue dates from 1876, the year before Gower's first exhibition at the Royal Academy. It was cast by the Parisian founders Thiebaut & Fils.