Friedrich Staps's attempt

Friedrich Staps was the son of a Lutheran pastor of Naumburg in Saxony. He was seventeen, belonged to no conspiracy and had told no one. He had made the journey to Vienna with one simple idea: to kill the man who, in his view, prevented Germany from existing.

On 12 October 1809 a parade was held in the courtyard of Schönbrunn. Staps approached the Emperor with a petition in his hand. General Rapp, who found his insistence strange, had him pushed aside and searched: he was carrying a large kitchen knife.

Napoleon had him brought in and questioned him himself, with Rapp interpreting. The boy answered without flinching that he had meant to kill him, that the peace now being made would change nothing, and that he would try again if released. He was offered a pardon on condition of expressing regret: he refused.

The Peace of Schönbrunn was signed on 14 October. Staps was shot shortly afterwards, crying out, according to witnesses, 'Long live liberty! Long live Germany!'

Until then the attempts on Napoleon's life had come from royalists paid by London or from Jacobin conspirators: identifiable political adversaries, within a French logic. Staps belonged to neither category.

He revealed a nascent German nationalism, fed by occupation, contributions and conscription, which the Confederation of the Rhine had organised without disarming. Napoleon, it is said, remained troubled by it. Four years later that feeling would supply the volunteers of the war of liberation.