Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Nevertheless, he had several accomplices, who cannot be supposed to have been actuated by a love of notoriety. In the midst of the general horror caused by Fieschi’s murderous, and in the case of many members of the king’s suite fatal attempt, the Legitimist journals taunted the Republicans with the crime, who, in their turn, cast the responsibility upon the Legitimists. Louis Philippe had been duly warned by the police that some conspiracy was being prepared against him. He was to proceed on the 28th of July, 1835, to a review, accompanied by a numerous staff. Endeavours had been made, if he insisted on going to the review, to induce him to take another route. He refused, however, to make any change in his arrangements, and as he was passing along the lower boulevard, close to the Jardin Turc, a battery, formed of twenty-four musket-barrels—afterwards to be known as the “infernal machine”—discharged upon the king and his staff a hail of bullets. The Duc de Trévise (Marshal Mortier), General de Vérigny, and several other officers fell mortally wounded; and inside a house from whose window the bullets had been fired was arrested Fieschi, the chief of the assassins. It was found impossible to connect the crime with the action of any political party, though at the trial suspicion was indirectly cast upon the Revolutionists, whose hopes had been so bitterly disappointed by the proclamation of a constitutional king instead of the establishment of a republic. That many of the attempts made upon the life of Louis Philippe were due to this party—who could not forget that they had driven away Charles X. only to replace him by Louis Philippe—is indisputable.[{114}] But the trial of Fieschi (the details of whose crime have been already related) brought to light in connection with the case no political circumstances of any kind. Against the theory generally accepted by French historians, that Fieschi, in preparing his diabolical outrage, was moved only by love of notoriety, must be placed the fact that he did not possess enough money to construct the “infernal machine” without assistance, and that he was supplied with funds by several workmen, who cannot themselves be supposed to have been burdened by any superfluity of cash, and who, in their turn, must have been supplied from some quarter destined to remain unknown. It was not until a month afterwards that, through his avowals, some of Fieschi’s accomplices were discovered; and it was not till the February of the following year that the trial before the Chamber of Peers was brought to an end. After eleven appearances before the court on eleven different occasions, Fieschi and two of the direct participators in his crime were condemned to death.

In the course of the evidence abundant particulars were furnished as to the life led by Fieschi since his earliest days. He had served in the Neapolitan army under Murat, whom, after the general collapse of the Napoleonic system, he seems to have betrayed to the Austrians. He had been imprisoned for various offences, and when at liberty had acted, in Italy and in France, as informer and spy. He had at last succeeded in obtaining a very small post under the Administration as keeper of some kind of mill; and as he was dismissed from this appointment only a few months before his attempt on the life of the king (a warrant being at the same time issued for his arrest), it is barely possible that in preparing his crime he was moved by some idea of personal vengeance acting upon a disordered brain.

Endeavours were made to obtain a commutation of the capital sentence on behalf of Fieschi’s accomplices; to which the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe’s eldest son, replied: “If I myself, or any member of the king’s family, had been struck, it might have been possible to grant the commutation demanded; but no relation of any of the victims has suggested it.” Fieschi and two of his accomplices were accordingly executed, without either of them saying the least word as to the origin of the foul conspiracy. Nineteen persons had been killed or mortally wounded by the explosion of the infernal machine, and twenty-three wounded seriously.

The prosecution of Louvel, another of the political prisoners arraigned at the Luxemburg, (to go back some years) began before his victim, the Duke of Berry, was dead; and in the very opera-house at whose doors, just as he was stepping into his carriage, the unfortunate man had been stabbed. In the manager’s private apartments the unhappy prince lay stretched on a bed, hastily arranged and already soaked with blood, surrounded by his nearest relatives. The poignant anguish of his wife was from time to time relieved by some faint ray of hope, destined soon to be dispelled. In a neighbouring room the assassin was being interrogated by the ministers Decazes and Pasquier, with the bloody dagger on the table before them; while on the stage the ballet of “Don Quixote” was being performed in presence of an enthusiastic public. In the course of the night King Louis XVIII. arrived; and his nephew expired in his arms at half-past six the next morning, begging that his murderer might be forgiven. The same day (Feb. 14th, 1820) the Chamber of Peers was, by special order of the king, constituted as a court of justice to try Louvel.

Meanwhile the assassin had, according to custom, been confronted with the body of his victim, and in the presence of the corpse was subjected to a full interrogatory.

In the body you see before you, do you recognise, he was asked, the wound made by your hand?

A. Yes.

Q. In the name of a prince who, until the last moment, supplicated the king in favour of his assassin, I call upon you to name your accomplices, and those who suggested to you the horrible project of assassination.

A. There are none to name.

Q. Who induced you to commit this crime?