Excerpt from The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch of the Russian Secret Service A year or two before the outbreak of the Franco Prussian War a daring attempt was made upon the life of the Emperor of Russia. He had been out shooting in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg, and was returning at dusk in company with numerous friends and a large suite. As the Royal carriage passed an isolated house on a country road, which was bordered on each side by a dense pine forest, a bomb was hurled from an upper window of the house. Fortunately it did not strike the carriage, as was intended, but, going over it, fell between the horses of two of the Royal Guard. The horses were blown to pieces, the riders were killed on the spot, and several other men were more or less injured. For some minutes a panic ensued. The Emperor's driver whipped his horses into a gallop, and everybody seemed at a loss what to do. The house, however, was soon surrounded, and a man and woman were seized as they were in the very act of escaping. It was soon made evident that this man and woman were mere tools, and the arch-conspirators had availed themselves of the confusion caused by the bursting bomb to get off. Darkness favoured the fugitives, and though the forest was scoured they were not captured. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.