Felice Orsini (; ; 10 December 1819 – 13 March 1858) was an Italian revolutionary and leader of the '' Carbonari'' who tried to assassinate

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...

Early life

Felice Orsini was born at

Meldola Meldola ( rgn, Mèdla) is a town and ''comune'' near Forlì, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. History The area of Meldola was inhabited since very ancient times. The Romans built here a large aqueduct (still existing under the ground) which served the m ...

in Romagna, then part of the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

. He was encouraged to become a priest, but he abandoned that lifestyle and became an ardent liberal, joining the '' Giovane Italia'', a political society founded by Giuseppe Mazzini.

Arrest and revolutionary activities

Orsini was arrested in 1844 along with his father, implicated in revolutionary plots and condemned to imprisonment for life. The new pope,

Pius IX Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...

set him free, and he led a company of young Romagnols in the First War of Italian Independence in 1848, distinguishing himself in the engagements at Treviso and Vicenza. Orsini was elected member of the Roman Constituent Assembly in 1849, and after the fall of the revolutionary republic in Rome he conspired against the papal autocracy in the interest of the Mazzinian party. Mazzini sent him on a secret mission to

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

, but he was arrested in 1854 and imprisoned at

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

. He escaped a few months later using a tiny saw to cut through two grids of bars, climbed out of the window 100 feet above ground and slid down using a rope he had made of bedsheets. Passing as a sympathetic peasant, he managed to get past the Austrian guards. In 1856, he briefly visited

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

and received a favorable welcome. The daily news had published the first English translation of his tale of escape. He published ''The Memoirs and Adventures of Felice Orsini'' in 1856. In 1857, he also published an account of his prison experiences in English under the title of ''The Austrian Dungeons'' in Italy, which led to a rupture between him and Mazzini. Then he began to negotiate with Ausonio Franchi, editor of the ''Ragione'' of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, which he proposed to make the organ of pure republicans. Orsini became convinced that

was the chief obstacle to Italian independence and the principal cause of the anti-liberal reaction throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. He plotted his assassination with the logic that after the emperor's death, France would rise in revolt and the Italians could exploit the situation to revolt themselves. He went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

in 1857 to conspire against the emperor. At the end of 1857, Orsini briefly visited England, where he contacted gunsmith Joseph Taylor and asked him to make six copies of a bomb of Orsini's own design; it would explode on impact and used fulminate of mercury as an explosive. The bomb was tested in Sheffield and Devon with the aid of French radical Simon Bernard. Satisfied, Orsini returned to Paris with the bombs and contacted other conspirators, Giuseppe Pieri, Antonio Gomez and Carlo di Rudio (later changed to Charles DeRudio).

Assassination attempt on Louis Napoleon

On the evening of 14 January 1858, as the Emperor and Empress were on their way to the theatre in the Rue Le Peletier, the precursor of the Opera Garnier, to see Rossini's '' William Tell'', Orsini and his accomplices threw three bombs at the imperial carriage. The first bomb landed among the horsemen in front of the carriage. The second bomb wounded the animals and smashed the carriage glass. The third bomb landed under the carriage and seriously wounded a policeman who was hurrying to protect the occupants. Eight people were killed and 142 wounded, though the emperor and empress were unhurt. They judged it best to proceed to the performance and appear before the public in their box. Orsini himself was wounded on the right temple and stunned. He tended his wounds and returned to his lodgings, where police found him the next day. The attempted assassination actually increased Napoleon III's popularity. Because the bombs had been made and tested in England, it caused a brief anti-British furor in France because of suspicion of British involvement. The Emperor refused to escalate the situation and the indignation eventually died down.

Letter to Napoleon III

On 11 February Orsini wrote his famous letter to Napoleon, in which he exhorted him to take up the cause of Italian independence—a cause Napoleon III had already supported in his youth. Modern historians have even suspected that Napoleon wrote some of the letter himself. He addressed another letter to the youth of Italy and condemned political assassination.

Judgment

Orsini was sentenced to death and went calmly to the guillotine on 13 March 1858. Accomplices Pieri was executed and Gomez condemned to hard labour for life. Di Rudio was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment on Devil's Island near Cayenne, whence he escaped and later went to America. He became an officer in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

, was appointed to the U.S. 7th Cavalry, and participated in—and survived—the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn.

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Orsini, Felice 1819 births 1858 deaths People from Meldola People of the Papal States Failed regicides 1858 crimes in France People executed by the Second French Empire Italian people executed abroad People executed by guillotine People executed for attempted murder Italian people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by France People executed by France by decapitation Executed Italian people 1858 murders in France Bombers (people)