Two Deaths at One Hotel - Hôtel Beau-Rivage
On 10 September 1898 the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni stabbed Empress Elisabeth of Austria on the quay outside this hotel, and she died inside within the hour. Eighty nine years later the former German state premier Uwe Barschel was found dead in room 317, a case that remains unsolved.
Su questo luogo
Opened in 1865 by the hotelier Jean-Jacques Mayer, the Beau-Rivage on the Quai du Mont-Blanc installed one of Switzerland's first hotel lifts in 1873, and that same year the Duke of Brunswick died here, leaving the city the fortune that helped build the Grand Théâtre. Yet its name is tied to two deaths. On Saturday 10 September 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria, travelling as the Countess of Hohenembs, left the hotel to catch the steamer Genève when the 25 year old Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni stabbed her once with a sharpened needle file. She walked on, boarded, collapsed, and was carried back here, where she died within the hour; Lucheni was sentenced to life and hanged himself in his Geneva cell in October 1910. In October 1987 the hotel made headlines again when Uwe Barschel, who had just resigned as state premier of Schleswig-Holstein, was found dead and fully clothed in the bathtub of room 317. Geneva ruled it suicide, many believe it was murder, and despite a Lübeck investigation and new DNA tests, the case has never been solved. Today a plaque on the quay and a bronze statue of Sisi mark the Empress's last walk, with the Jet d'Eau rising over the harbour behind them.
Fatti principali
- 85 millimetres — The depth of the single wound from Lucheni's sharpened needle file, which pierced the Empress's heart while her tight corset held back the bleeding.
- 317 room number — Uwe Barschel was found dead and fully clothed in the bathtub of room 317 on 11 October 1987.
- 8 drugs — Eight different medications were found in Barschel's body; Geneva ruled suicide, yet the case is still unsolved.