Six assassinations carried out within eleven years, plus at least fifteen serious attack plans that are uncovered before the crime is carried out: France's citizen king Louis Philippe (1773-1850) is quite high in the top ten of the "most popular" targets of assassins, along with Queen Victoria and Alexander II of Russia, who finally succumbed to the ninth attempt on him.
Alone, the French monarch holds another dubious "record" in the world history of assassinations: Never were more bullets fired at a single person at once, and in no other assassination attempt with firearms were so many bystanders injured as on July 28, 1835 on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
It should be a normal holiday, reminiscent of the July revolution five years earlier. But Louis Philippe, who was appointed to the throne at the time, had long since lost the trust placed in him. Therefore, the National Guard assembled only reluctantly and incompletely for the planned examination by the king; Rumors swept through Paris that the Republican Party would send a signal that day. Bitter caricatures and cynical remarks appeared in newspapers in the days before - for example: "The citizen king came to Paris yesterday with his wonderful family without having been murdered in any way."
The night before the parade, the police searched a few houses along Boulevard du Temple, but found nothing suspicious. Then, on the morning of July 28, a sweltering, muggy day, the king and his large entourage rode slowly between the silent lines of National Guardsmen on one side of the boulevard and regular troops on the other, the expected happened: Suddenly a whole rain of bullets erupted. It banged as if a whole peloton had fired at once. The horses shied in rows.
Miraculously, Louis Philippe escaped almost unhurt, as did his two eldest sons, who rode alongside him. Other companions, however, were hit, including a marshal and a general. Since the shots were fired from the line troops' side of the street, some National Guardsmen died across the boulevard, as well as several spectators. Eleven people died instantly, and a further eight succumbed to their injuries in the days that followed. There were also 22 wounded, but they survived.
A cloud of powder told the startled soldiers which window in which house the shots had come from: Boulevard du Temple No. 50, a narrow, somewhat dilapidated building with two upper floors and a staggered floor.
The house was quickly stormed and the murder weapon was found in the room on the third floor. It was a cleverly constructed "hell machine" of 25 gun barrels on a moving frame; each was loaded with six to eight bullets. Three barrels had not fired, two had burst, but apparently more than 120 projectiles had been fired at the king riding past in one fell swoop. Given this, it was a small miracle that Louis Philippe survived. By the way, his horse died a little later.
The perpetrator had prepared his escape well; depending on the situation, he wanted either to climb down a rope into the yard or, on the contrary, to escape over the roofs of the row of houses. But his plan failed twice over: first, the king survived, second, two barrels exploded when he was fired; they severely injured the assassin in the face and arms.
Covered in blood, he tried to flee anyway, but soldiers were able to follow him with a trail of blood and arrest him in the neighboring house. It was Guiseppe Fieschi, a 45-year-old Corsican. He had conceived, built and fired the "Hell Machine".
Fieschi, born in 1790, was a failed existence from difficult circumstances; his father, a poor shepherd, had died in prison. As a teenager, Fieschi had volunteered for the French army in order to be able to leave his homeland; among other things he fought in Italy and in Napoleon's campaign against Russia.
After his release in 1814, like so many former soldiers, he couldn't cope with civilian life. Fieschi slipped into the criminal milieu, lived from petty crimes and henchmen. He was caught, arrested and convicted several times; finally, as a repeat offender, he received a sentence of ten years imprisonment. But in the summer of 1830, after the fall of the reactionary Bourbon monarchy, he was able to present himself as a political prisoner and was pardoned.
Fieschi remained a criminal; at the same time he worked as a police informer. Under various false names, the Corsican spent his days in different French cities, eking out a living. Ever since the failed revolution of 1832, he had dreamed of the ultimate weapon for barricade fighting: a ninety-barreled gun.
During his time as an informer, Fieschi met a violent Republican, the 61-year-old saddler Pierre Morey. He hated all forms of monarchy in general; personally he had little against Louis Philippe, even if he was disappointed in the citizen king. Morey promised Fieschi fame and money if he would build and operate a smaller version of his "hell machine" for an assassination. As a financier, Morey won the 35-year-old dealer Theodore Pépin, who financed the construction of the infernal machine and paid Fieschi an advance on the promised wages.
But the two clients did not trust the Corsican; Morey tampered with some of the barrels because Fieschi was not supposed to survive firing his own gun. In any case, Pépin could not raise the promised murder wages. From their point of view, their plan was almost perfect: Fieschi would commit the crime, die and no longer pose a threat to the Republicans.
What they didn't know: the career criminal had deposited evidence against his clients with a mistress. At first Fieschi was silent during his interrogation, but when he learned that his "hell machine" had been deliberately manipulated to kill the assassin, he implicated his employers.
The trial of the three was quite entertaining for the audience: Morey remained steadfast and almost arrogantly rejected all allegations; Pépin initially collapsed and only regained his self-confidence during the course of the proceedings; Fieschi played it up: he apparently relied on a pardon because of his confession and his help in uncovering the background.
But he was wrong about that: Like his two clients, the designer of the shooting device himself was sentenced to death with the guillotine. On February 19, 1836, four days after the verdict, the three delinquents died one after the other on the same guillotine.
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