Seeking to spark revolution by eliminating a monarch he blamed for propping up oppressive Italian regimes, Felice Orsini and accomplices threw three bombs at Napoleon III's carriage outside the Paris Opera. Eight people died and over 150 were wounded, but the emperor and empress emerged largely unscathed. The attack ironically pushed Napoleon III toward supporting Italian unification to placate nationalist sentiment.
Orsini, a veteran of Italian revolutionary movements, believed that killing Napoleon III would ignite the kind of popular uprising he had failed to spark in Italy itself. He and his co-conspirators packed explosive shells with fulminate of mercury, a notoriously unstable detonator, and positioned themselves along the emperor's route to a gala performance at the Rue Le Peletier opera house.
The bombs exploded in quick succession, shredding the crowd lining the street, killing horses, and shattering windows for blocks, but the imperial carriage's reinforced construction shielded its occupants. Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, shaken but composed, insisted on entering the opera house as planned, to demonstrate their defiance, while the wounded were carried away outside.
Orsini was captured, tried, and guillotined months later, but not before writing a letter to the emperor arguing for Italian independence that reportedly moved Napoleon III. Whether from genuine sympathy or political calculation, the emperor's government moved toward supporting Italian unification against Austria the following year, an outcome the dead assassin might have considered a strange vindication.