Author: Count Joseph Orsi
Author: Count Joseph Orsi (1808–1899)
Biography: Count Joseph Orsi was born in Italy, a member of a Florentine banking family. As a youth, he met Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, then living in exile. He followed the prince to London where he entered business. In 1840, he attempted to land Louis Napoleon at Boulogne, but the planned uprising did not take place. Instead, the conspirator were arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Orsi served five years then returned to London. A few years later, he helped the prince escape prison in 1846. Louis Napoleon was subsequently elected president of France then crowned emperor. After the Franco-German War, Louis Napoleon was exiled again and Orsi was arrested by the Commune. He returned to London where he turned to literature to support himself. Besides articles and a memoir of Louis Napoleon, Orsi wrote the single novel The Maid of Brittany (1894). He died in 1899 in Fulham in poverty.
References: British Census (1881); Evening Telegraph [Dundee] (10 June 1899); Notes and Queries (1932)
Fiction Titles:
- The Maid of Brittany: An Italian Romance. 2 vol. London: Remington, 1894.