Giuseppe Marco Fieschi

Who was Giuseppe Marco Fieschi?

Giuseppe Marco Fieschi was the chief conspirator in an attempt on the life of King Louis-Philippe of France in July 1835.

Fieschi was a native of Murato in Corsica. He served under Murat, then returned to Corsica, where he was condemned to ten years imprisonment and perpetual surveillance by the police for theft and forgery. After a period of vagabondage he eluded the police and obtained a small post in Paris by means of forged papers; but losing it on account of his suspicious manner of living, he resolved to revenge himself on society. He took lodgings on the Boulevard du Temple, and there, with two members of the Society of the Rights of Man, Morey and Pépin by name, contrived an "infernal machine", consisting of twenty gun barrels, to be fired simultaneously.

On 28 July 1835, as Louis-Philippe was passing along the Boulevard du Temple, which connected Place de la République to the Bastille, accompanied by his three sons and a numerous staff, the device was fired from an upper storey of n° 50 Boulevard du Temple.