Giuseppe Fieschi’s Volley Gun,Giuseppe Fieschi was a Corsican man and French patriot who had s

Giuseppe Fieschi’s Volley Gun,Giuseppe Fieschi was a Corsican man and French patriot who had served under Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars.  He had even survived the disastrous Russian Campaign which would prove the beginning of the end of Napoleon’s reign as Emperor of France.  Despite Napoleon’s defeat, Fieschi was still a diehard believer in the republican cause.  In 1835 Louis Philippe was King of France.  Although he was a constitutional monarch with limited powers, Louis Philippe supported conservative policies that drew the ire of the liberal factions in France.  Fieschi despised Louis Philippe for his policies as well as the monarchy itself, and decided that he would personally see to it that Louis Philippe was killed.To carry out the assassination, Fieschi and two co-conspirators designed and construction a special weapon called “The Infernal Machine”.  The weapon was a volley gun that consisted of 25 barrels which were rigged to discharge simultaneously.  The assassination was planned to take place at the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on the 28th of July, 1835.  On that day, Louis Philippe was to conducted a review of the National Guard and was to travel along the Boulevard du Temple.  Fieschi and his conspirators rented a 3rd story apartment overlooking the street and constructed the volley gun right at the window.  The volley gun itself featured a wooden frame which held the 25 gun barrels. The frame was slopped in order to point the barrels downward directly onto the street.  The barrels themselves were not actual gun barrels, but simple metal tubes constructed of low quality iron. Each barrel was loaded with a charge of black powder, eight bullets, and 15 - 20 smaller pieces of buckshot.When Louis Philippe passed under the apartment window on the 25th, Fieschi discharged the weapon, spraying Louis Philippe and his escort with over 400 projectiles. Four of the barrels failed to fire while four other barrels exploded, gravely wounding Fieschi in the process.  However the discharge of the remaining barrels was enough to kill 18 people while wounding 22 others.  Louis Philippe himself sustained a superficial graze on his forehead, but otherwise survived the assassination attempt.Fieschi was immediately arrested and later executed by guillotine along with his co-conspirators.  The Infernal Machine was sold for scrap, but amazingly was saved and protected.  It is currently on display at the Museum of French History. -- source link

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