In May 1867, Emperor Alexander II arrived in Paris for the opening of the World Exhibition. This was not only a social event, as almost all European monarchs gathered, but also a political and economic one. The celebrations were lively, and the police could not protect the Russian emperor from people showing sympathy for the Poles, who shouted at his appearance: “Long live Poland, monsieur!”

There is a legend that on one of the May days, a gypsy woman known in Paris as the fortune teller Tamar ran up to the emperor. She took his hand, looking closely at the lines on his palm: “I see seven deaths in your fate, sovereign, six times your life will hang by a thread, but will not break, the seventh time death will catch you.” Hearing the gypsy’s words, Alexander II turned pale: he remembered how Dmitry Karakozov had shot at him. The next day he ordered the fortune teller to be brought to the palace. Tamar took out cards: the emperor again drew seven deaths. The emperor gave the gypsy gold and wanted to let her go, but she did not leave: she decided to clarify the prediction. The gypsy handed him a white batiste handkerchief. “Beware, sovereign, of a fair-haired woman with such a handkerchief in her hand. From her will come your doom,” Tamar warned. No one knows if this really happened or not; most likely this story is just a myth. However, Alexander himself believed in his divine chosenness until his last day; he had been close to death so many times that he stopped fearing its icy breath.

On May 25 old style (June 6 new style), Alexander II, together with the Emperor of France Napoleon III, was returning from a parade on the Champs-Élysées when suddenly a man in a worker’s blouse rushed toward their carriage. The coachman riding alongside the carriage, the French court’s stable master Rambo, spurred his horse to push the runner aside, but the man managed to draw a pistol and fire.

As in the previous case, the terrorist was undone by accident. He had loaded an old double-barreled pistol with too much gunpowder, and it exploded when fired. The bullet, however, flew out and hit Rambo’s horse, and its blood splattered the royal passengers. To those around, including the attacker, it seemed the attack had succeeded.

This time the assassin was a 25-year-old Pole expelled from Russia, which was a relief for Alexander II compared to the shot fired by the Russian Karakozov. Anton Berezovsky was born into a poor family of a music teacher and had several brothers and sisters. In 1863, during the uprising in the Kingdom of Poland, he joined the insurgents; his father was categorically against it and cursed his son for taking up arms. After the uprising was suppressed, Berezovsky fled to the Austrian part of Poland and then moved to Germany. After being expelled from his last service, he came by train to Paris and ended up at the same station where the Russian emperor’s train arrived, whom he considered responsible for all his troubles. That was when he decided to attempt the assassination. The French believed they had conclusively proven the absence of a conspiracy. But they did not manage to fully convince the Russian emperor of their correctness. The French press and liberal public launched a campaign in support of Berezovsky, and the trial turned into a platform for anti-Russian speeches.

“He killed our land,” Berezovsky shouted at the trial. “He destroyed its inhabitants. With one stroke of the pen, he sent everyone to Siberia — and after all this, would I not have the right to kill him?” And his lawyer claimed: “Poland in 1863 was driven not by revolutionary aspirations, but by noble quests for justice, a thirst to restore the homeland and religion. Berezovsky followed these same aspirations.”

French newspapers wrote that the trial of Berezovsky turned into a trial of Russia. The jury recognized mitigating circumstances and sentenced Berezovsky to life hard labor.

Source:

 https://diletant.media/top-5/6767/

https://history.wikireading.ru/183521

https://i-fakt.ru/gibel-aleksandra-vtorogo-predskazala-gadalka/