Felice Orsini

Teobaldus Orsus Felice Orsini (born the December 10th 1819 with Meldola, close to Forlì, Emilie-Romagna - died the March 13rd 1858 with Paris) was a Révolutionnaire and Italian patriot , figure important of the Italian Risorgimento (with Piero Maroncelli and Aurelio Saffi), author of an attack against Napoleon III, emperor of the French, in 1858.

The attack of Orsini

At the evening of the January 14th 1858, three bombs were launched against the procession of the imperial couple which went to the Opéra by the street the Furrier. The attack - which made eight dead and 142 wounded - failed, the couple imperial while leaving miraculeusement unscathed, although the car in which were the emperor Napoleon III, the empress Eugenie and the general Christophe Michel Roguet (1800 - 1877) - who was wounded - had accepted nearly a hundred glares.

The authors of the attack were four Italian revolutionists, who were stopped and locked up with the Conciergerie.

Felice Orsini, member of the movement Young Italy - founded during its exile with Marseilles by Giuseppe Mazzini - and conspirator of long time, which belonged to the republican Parliament of Rome in 1848 was the instigator and the organizer of the attack, which it carried out with his three accomplices, Pieri, Gomez and Rudio. Partisan of the Italian reunification, it reproached the emperor for blocking it, in particular because of the intervention of the French troops with Rome in 1849, to reinstall the Pape, under the influence of the left the Order, and had decided to eliminate it.

The authors of the attack were judged by the Court of Assizes of the Seine at the time of two audiences the 25 and February 26th 1858. They were defended by the lawyer and Politician Jules Favre. Only Orsini and Pieri were condemned to death, and they went up to the scaffold the March 13rd 1858 while shouting “Lives Italy! Live France! ”.

The attack justified a severe law of safety, the law of general security promulgated by the government the February 27th 1858, which organized repression against the French republicans - regarded as accomplices - of which some were off-set in Algérie. In another register, this event started the organization of a contest for a new Opera, with the surer accesses, than one will name the Palais Garnier.

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