Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/136

110 and orders of every description—he seemed more than ever to form part of the train of his Empress.

Then came the Court and the clergy, defiling into the room next to ours, the latter intoning some wonderful Russian chants, which are so perfectly rendered that one imagines them to be instrument ally accompanied.

The anticipated attempt at assassination was not long delayed: presently some fragments of shrapnel shells fell into our room and quite close to the group of people where I was standing, smashing the panes of glass of one of the windows, which were strewn all over the floor. These shells had been fired from the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul situated on the opposite side of the Neva.

Ostensibly the guns were fired as a salute with blank cartridges, but through an oversight of the commanding officer one had been fired with live shells, the result being that a perfect hail of shrapnel fell on to the Chapel in which the Emperor had taken up his position, he of course being the object aimed at.

The Tzar during this terrible ordeal never moved a muscle except to make the Sign of the Cross.

I shall never forget the quiet resigned smile on His Imperial Majesty's countenance when he returned to the Palace—it seemed almost unearthly. In the street an unfortunate mounted policeman was killed, and on the floor beneath ours—the ground floor—five people were seriously wounded.