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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt:...and then he took the most extraordinary step of his whole reign. He appointed the veteran General Melikof temporary dictator of the empire for six months. That officer had distinguished himself in the war with Turkey and afterward as governor of Charkof, and was nearly three score years old. There could be no question of his personal loyalty to the Emperor, who conferred almost absolute powers upon him and over the six governors-general of the empire. All that a single man could do, with the unlimited resources at his command, General Melikof was sure to do for his august but sorely harassed master. The explosion in the palace caused a panic in St. Petersburg. People in walking the streets did not know when they might be treading upon dynamite, connected by electric wire with the hand of some shaggy and scowling nihilist hidden in one of the surrounding buildings. When it was believed the Emperor intended to attend the opera, the patrons kept away, and while the baleful shadow that hung over him was dark enough, it was made tenfold more sombre by the wild reports that were upon every one's tongue. There was a snowstorm of nihilist circulars and manifestoes, with the same fiendish declaration that the autocrat had but a few days more to live. Russia--Death of Alexander II The Empress succumbed to her illness of body and mind, and died on the 3d of June. It would seem that the implacable foes of the Emperor would have been nerveless during his affliction, but with infernal ingenuity they planned to blow up the bridge over which the funeral procession was to pass, so as to destroy the mourners, including the foreign princes and all the attendants. They would have succeeded but for the intervention of the elements. A tremendous storm raised the Neva level with...