Attempted assassination of the Emperor of Russia.

— Under the title News from Russia — correspondence from St. Petersburg — the Indépendance belge of April 30 gives a detailed account of the circumstances that followed the attempt of which the czar was the object. Besides, it speaks of certain precursory indications of the crime and contains in this regard the following passage:

“It is recounted that the governor of St. Petersburg, Prince Souwouroff, had received an anonymous letter, signed N.N.N., in which he was offered, by means of certain indications, to unveil an important mystery, requesting a reply in the Police Gazette. The reply appeared; it is conceived thus: ‘The chancellery of the governor general invites N.N.N. to come tomorrow, between eleven and two o’clock, to give certain explanations.’ But the anonymous person did not appear; he sent a second letter, announcing that it was too late and he was no longer free to come.

“The invitation was reiterated two days after the attempt, but without result.

“Finally, as a last indication, some persons have just remembered that three weeks before the attempt the German newspaper Die Gartenlaube published the account of a Spiritist session, held in Heidelberg, in which the Spirit of Catherine II announced that the emperor Alexander was threatened by a great danger.

“It is difficult to explain, after all this, how the Russian police could not be informed in time of the crime that was being prepared. This police, which costs very dear, and which floods all our circles and public assemblies with useless spies, was not only incapable of discovering the plot in time, but even of surrounding the sovereign with its vigilance, which is elementary and of all necessity, above all with a prince who almost always goes out alone, followed by his big dog; who takes walks on foot in the early morning hours, without being accompanied by an aide-de-camp. On the very day of the attempt, I met the emperor on Millonaia Street, at half past nine in the morning; he was completely alone and greeted with affability those who recognized him: the street was almost deserted and the police agents very rare.”

— What is, above all, remarkable in this article is the mention, without comment, of the warning given by the Spirit of Catherine II, in a Spiritist session. Would they have placed this fact among the number of precursory indications, if Spiritist communications had been considered as trickery or illusions? In a question so grave, they would have avoided bringing in a belief considered as ridiculous. It is a new proof of the reaction taking place in opinion, with regard to Spiritism.

We have to analyze the fact of the attempt from another point of view. It is known that the emperor owed his salvation to a young peasant named Joseph Kommissaroff who, finding himself in his path, disarmed the arm of the assassin. It is known, too, the favors of every kind with which the latter was showered: he was ennobled, and the gifts he received assure him a considerable fortune.

The young man was going to a chapel, situated on the other side of the Neva, on the occasion of his birthday; at that moment the thaw was beginning and, because circulation had been interrupted, he had to renounce his plan. As a result of this fact, he remained on the other bank of the river and found himself in the path of the emperor, who was leaving the summer garden. Having mingled with the crowd, he perceived an individual who was trying to draw near, and whose attitudes seemed suspicious to him; he followed him and, having seen him draw a pistol from his pocket and aim it at the emperor, had the presence of mind to strike his arm, which made the weapon fire into the air. What a happy chance, certain persons will say, that just at that moment the thaw prevented Kommissaroff from crossing the Neva! For us, who do not believe in chance, but that everything is submitted to an intelligent direction, we shall say that it was in the czar’s trials to run that danger (See The Gospel According to Spiritism, chapter XXV, Prayer in an imminent danger), but, his hour not having yet come, Kommissaroff had been chosen to prevent the consummation of the crime, and the things which seem the effect of chance were combined to lead to the desired result. Men are the unconscious instruments of the designs of Providence. It is through them that it realizes them, without there being any need to resort to prodigies. The invisible hand that directs them suffices, and nothing departs from the order of natural things.

If it is so, they will say, man is nothing but a machine, and his actions are fatal. — Not at all, because if he is solicited to do a thing, he is not constrained to it; he does not cease to retain free will, by virtue of which he can do it or not, and the hand that conducts him remains invisible, precisely in order to leave him more liberty. Thus Kommissaroff could very well not have yielded to the hidden impulse that directed him toward the path of the emperor; he could have remained indifferent, like so many others, at the sight of the suspicious man; finally, he could have looked the other way at the moment when the latter drew the pistol from his pocket. — But then, if he had resisted that impulse, would the emperor have been killed? — Not that either; the designs of Providence are not at the mercy of the caprice of a man. The life of the emperor was to be preserved; in default of Kommissaroff, it would have been by another means; a fly could have stung the hand of the assassin, leading him to make an involuntary movement; a fluidic current directed upon him could have provoked in him a dimming of sight. Only, if Kommissaroff had not heeded the intimate voice that guided him despite himself, he would have lost the benefit of the action he was charged with performing: that is all that would have resulted. But if the fatal hour had sounded for the czar, nothing could have preserved him. Now, the imminent dangers that we run have for their precise objective to show us that our life hangs by a thread, which may break at the moment when we least think of it and, thus, to warn us to be always ready to depart. But why this young peasant, and not another? For whoever does not see in events a simple play of chance, each thing has its reason for being. There must, then, have been a motive in the choice of that young man and, even when that motive were unknown to us, Providence gives us proofs enough of its wisdom for us not to doubt that such a choice had its utility.

— The question having been presented as an object of study, at a Spiritist meeting held in the house of a Russian family residing in Paris, a Spirit gave the following explanation:

(Paris, May 1, 1866. – Medium: Mr. Desliens.)

Even in the existence of the most insignificant being, nothing is left to chance. The principal events of his life are determined by his trial: the details are influenced by his free will; but the whole of the situation was foreseen and combined beforehand by himself and by those whom God chose for his guardianship.

In the case that occupies us here, things came to pass according to the ordinary course. This young man being already advanced and intelligent, he chose as a trial to be born in a miserable condition, after having occupied a high social position; his intelligence and his morality being already developed, he asked for a humble and obscure condition in order to destroy the last seeds of pride that the caste spirit had left in him. He chose freely, but God and the good Spirits reserved to themselves the right to reward him at the first manifestation of disinterested devotion, and you see in what his reward consists. It remains for him now, amid the honors and the fortune, to keep intact the sentiment of humility, which was the basis of his new incarnation; for this reason, it is still a trial, and a double trial, in his quality as a man and in his quality as a father. As a man, he must resist the intoxication of a high and sudden fortune; as a father, he must preserve his children from the arrogance of the newly rich. He can create for them an admirable position; he can take advantage of his intermediate position to make of them men useful to their country. Plebeians by birth, noble by the merit of their father, they will be able, like many of those who incarnate presently in Russia, to work powerfully for the fusion of all the heterogeneous elements, for the disappearance of the servile element which, however, for a long time cannot be radically destroyed. In this elevation there is, no doubt, a reward, but there is still a trial. I know that in Russia merit rewarded finds favor before the great; but there, as elsewhere, the newly rich man, proud and full of himself, is the victim of mockery; he becomes the plaything of a society which he vainly strives to imitate. Gold and grandeurs have not given him the elegance and the spirit of the world. Despised and envied by those in whose midst he was born, he is often isolated and unhappy amid his pomp.

As you see, not everything is agreeable in these sudden ascensions, above all when they reach such proportions. For this young man, we hope, by reason of his excellent qualities, that he will know how to enjoy in peace the advantages procured for him by his action, and to avoid the stumbling stones that could retard his march on the path of progress.

Mokí.

Observation. – In default of material proofs of the exactitude of this explanation, we must agree that it is eminently rational and instructive; and as the Spirit who gave it has always distinguished himself by the gravity and high scope of his communications, we consider this one as having all the characters of probability.

Indeed, the new position of Kommissaroff is very risky for him, and his future depends on the manner in which he will undergo this trial, a hundred times more dangerous than the material misfortunes to which one resigns oneself perforce, whereas it is far more difficult to resist the temptations of pride and opulence. What strength he would draw from the knowledge of Spiritism and of all the truths it teaches!

But, as could be noted, the views of Providence do not stop at that young man. Undergoing his trial, and by the very fact of the trial, he may, through the chain of circumstances, become an element of progress for his country, helping the destruction of the prejudices of caste. Thus, everything is linked in the world, by the concurrence of the intelligent forces that direct it; nothing is useless, and the smallest things in appearance may lead to the greatest results, and this without derogating from the laws of Nature. If we could see the mechanism that our material nature and our inferiority conceal from us, with what admiration would we not be transported! But if we cannot see it, Spiritism, by revealing these laws, makes us understand it through thought, and it is by this that it elevates us, increases our faith and our confidence in God, and victoriously combats incredulity.