Sante Geronimo Caserio

Sante Geronimo Caserio (Italian: [ˈsante caˈzɛrjo]; 8 September 1873 – 16 August 1894) was an Italian anarchist and the assassin of Marie François Sadi Carnot, President of the French Third Republic. Caserio was born in Motta Visconti, Lombardy. On 24 June 1894, he fatally stabbed President Carnot after a banquet, to avenge Auguste Vaillant and Émile Henry.

Sante Caserio was a Lombardy-born son of a peasant family, who had many brothers and sisters. His father was a boatman and named him Geronimo in honor of the Apache leader. His father died of pellagra, at the time a common disease among farmers whose poor diet was often almost exclusively corn. At ten years old, Sante Caserio left the family home and went to Milan, where he got a job as an apprentice baker and had his first contacts with anarchists.

In Milan he joined a small group called "Walk" (At the time synonymous to "no money"). Pietro Gori, referring to Caserio, remembered him as a generous person. Among the workers and unemployed, he divided bread and anarchist pamphlets he printed with his meager salary. In 1892 he was sentenced to eight months in prison for distributing anarchist leaflets. Identified and singled out during a public demonstration, he was forced to flee from Italy at the age of 18. Declared a deserter, he first went to Switzerland and sought a job as a baker in Vienne. He then moved to Lyon on July 21, 1893 where he worked as a messenger.

At his trial, Caserio described the assassination in detail:

I heard the "Marseillaise" and the cries of "Viva Carnot!" I saw the cavalry come up. I understood that the moment had come and I held myself ready. On seeing the President's carriage I drew my dagger and threw away the sheath. Then, when the carriage was passing close by me, I sprang forward to the step, supported myself by resting my left hand on the carriage, and with my right hand buried the dagger in the President's breast.

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