The Day Napoleon Almost Got Assassinated

On 12 October 1809, Napoleon had installed himself in the residence of the Habsburgs, the dynasty ruling over Austria, which he had subjugated.

Frédéric Staps, an exalted 18-year-old nationalist student, regarded the Emperor as a despot and intended to rid Europe of him.

He had planned to kill Napoleon at a military parade. Blending into the crowd, he attempted to approach the man he considered a tyrant, but was blocked by the Emperor's aide-de-camp. His right hand thrust deep into his pocket, along with his general demeanour, aroused the suspicion of the gendarmerie officers who arrested him and discovered that the young man was carrying a dagger.

Questioned by various generals and by Napoleon himself — to whom he declared: "Killing you is not a crime, it is a duty!" — Frédéric Staps was tried by a military commission on 15 October 1809, which sentenced him to death.

Jean Tulard, a towering Napoleonic specialist, details with exemplary precision what the consequences of this assassination attempt were on the politics of the era and — perhaps surprisingly — on Napoleon's own morale.

Jean Tulard, born on 22 December 1933 in Paris, is a French academic (he was a professor at the Sorbonne and at Sciences-Po) and historian. Considered one of the foremost specialists on Napoleon I and the Napoleonic era, he served as president of the Institut Napoléon from 1974 to 1999.