This new attempt on his life, with the attending number of victims, impressed the Czar’s mind so deeply that it brought on a new attack of melancholy which his physicians were powerless to subdue. Domestic troubles added to his mental depression, and caused apprehensions of a total collapse of his mental faculties. His general health had also greatly suffered from the long continued strain of his nervous system. In June, 1880, his wife died after a lingering illness. She was a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, very handsome and highly accomplished when he married her, in 1841. But the marriage was not a happy one. For quite a number of years the Czar carried on a liaison with the beautiful Princess Dolgorouki, and shortly after the death of the Empress he contracted a morganatic marriage with her, in spite of the energetic protests of the Czarowitz and his other children. The Princess had great influence over Alexander’s decisions as a ruler; and when he seemed to have made up his mind to abdicate and retire to private life, she prevented the consummation of this design by her emphatic protests. Alexander had formed the plan to transfer the crown to his son, but only on one condition: that the Princess, his wife, should always be treated by the imperial family with the same consideration as the deceased Empress, and that her children should also be treated as brothers and sisters by the Czar. But when he informed the Princess of this plan, she flew into a passion, rejected the proposition most angrily, saying that she knew the feelings of the Czarowitz toward her too well to place any confidence in his promises, and demanded, as a proof of his affection for her, that Alexander should forever renounce his plan of abdication. Alexander therefore remained, much against his own inclination, on the throne until the day of his death, the thirteenth of March, 1881.
On the forenoon of that day he returned from the residence of the Princess to the Winter Palace, driving along the St. Michael’s Canal. He was escorted by a small detachment of cavalry and an adjutant of the Director of Police. About midway between the residence of the Princess and the Winter Palace a man ran up to the imperial carriage throwing a bomb charged with dynamite under the horses. It killed two men of the Czar’s escort and wounded three others. In spite of the protests of the police officer and the driver, who insisted on taking the Czar as rapidly as possible to the Winter Palace, he alighted, unhurt as he was, to look after the victims of the attack. In doing so, he exclaimed: “Thank God, I was not hurt!” But the man who had thrown the bomb and been seized by the escort, hearing the Czar’s exclamation, replied: “Perhaps it is not time yet to thank God!” At the same time another person hurled a bomb at the feet of the Emperor. His legs were broken by the explosion, his abdomen was torn open so that the intestines protruded, and his face was badly disfigured. The Emperor fell to the ground, exclaiming: “Help me! Quick to the Palace! I am dying!” The explosion was so violent that the windows of a church and of the imperial stables situated on the opposite side of the Canal were shattered. Many persons were killed or wounded. The imperial carriage was also considerably damaged. The Emperor was therefore lifted into a sleigh, which returned to the Winter Palace at a gallop. The blood flowed in great quantity from his wounds, and as he was carried up the large stairway of the Palace he fainted. The surgeons found it impossible to stop the hemorrhage, and at thirty-five minutes past three o’clock in the afternoon he breathed his last without having recovered consciousness for a moment.
The assassination caused the most intense excitement in the capital. A shout of triumph went up from the Executive Committee of the Nihilists, and a few days afterward the people of St. Petersburg could read the following manifesto, which, in spite of the care of the police, had been posted in several conspicuous places:
“The Executive Committee consider it necessary once more to announce to all the world that it repeatedly warned the tyrant now assassinated, repeatedly advised him to put an end to his homicidal obstinacy, and to restore to Russia its natural rights. Every one knows that the tyrant paid no attention to these warnings and pursued his former policy. Reprisals continued. The Executive Committee never drop their weapons. They resolved to execute the despot at whatever cost. On the thirteenth of March this was done.
“We address ourselves to the newly crowned Alexander the Third, reminding him that he must be just. Russia, exhausted by famine, worn out by the arbitrary proceedings of the administration, continually losing its sons on the gallows, in the mines, in exile, or in wearisome inactivity caused by the present régime,—Russia cannot longer live thus. She demands liberty. She must live in conformity with her demands, her wishes, and her will. We remind Alexander the Third that every violator of the will of the people is the nation’s enemy and tyrant. The death of Alexander the Second shows the vengeance which follows such acts.”
These accusations were only partly true. Alexander, on ascending the throne, had honestly tried to introduce reforms, abolish abuses and pave the way for a progressive, liberal government. But his liberal policy did not satisfy the Nihilists. And when in self-protection he fell back on the former policy of repression, the Nihilists began a war of reprisals, and finally murdered the Czar.