Amid a period of militant upheaval, in March 1894 Prime Minister Francesco Crispi of Italy responded to a request from the government of Monaco to help the Principality monitor political radicals.
The same year, the Prime Minister had deployed the army and declared a state of siege in Sicily to put down the partially anarchist-led Fasci Siciliani, crushing an anarchist solidarity revolt in Lunigiana along the way.
Only months later in June anarchists unsuccessfully attempted to shoot Crispi himself, successfully assassinating President Marie François Sadi Carnot.
[1] The prominent individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker moved from the United States first to France and then to Monaco, after a 1908 fire in his New York City bookstore saw him lose both uninsured printing equipment and his 30-year stock of books and pamphlets.
A Monegasque poet, composer and a dynamic and controversial live performer, he became a very prominent protest singer in France, releasing some forty albums and many successful singles throughout his career.