This article first appeared in Historia magazine

Part one: love

In May 1867, a World Fair was held in Paris. Tsar Alexander II was there to show Russian support for France in the face of rising Prussian militarism.

He also had his own private reasons for visiting the City of Lights.

Alexander had secretly installed his mistress, Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova, in an apartment next door to the Elysée Palace where he was staying. In the past, Alexander had been notoriously indiscreet about his many mistresses.

But Princess Dolgorukova was different. Instead of jumping straight into the Tsar’s bed, as most young ladies who caught his eye did, Ekaterina held out against Alexander’s advances for almost a year. And the more she held out, the more he wanted her.

When their relationship was finally consummated in 1866, Alexander told her that she was his ‘secret wife’, vowing to marry her as soon as he was free to do so. Inconveniently, he already had a wife, the consumptive Tsarina Maria, who had been advised by doctors to refrain from sexual intercourse with her husband.

In Paris, the Tsar spent his days doing the diplomatic rounds. At night, a hired carriage brought his mistress to the palace under cover of darkness. It was the perfect arrangement, and the 49-year-old Tsar was as happy as a teenager in love.

Then, one day, while Alexander was walking in the Tuileries, a mysterious gypsy offered to read his palm. According to the story, the fortune teller predicted that seven attempts would be made on his life.

Part two: death

The historical novelist in me is naturally drawn to this incident, which Alexander II’s biographer Edvard Radzinsky claims is recounted in “the memoirs of contemporaries” – an infuriatingly vague phrase not backed up by any references. Despite exhaustive googling I haven’t been able to identify the sources.

But let’s go with it. It makes for great historical fiction, after all.

We can imagine the Romany woman’s expression darkening (for some reason, I picture the fortune teller as a woman) as she sees what is written in the Tsar’s palm.

I can even invent what she might have said to him: “Seven times the assassins will strike. Six times you will escape with your life.”

“And on the seventh?” the Tsar might hesitantly ask.

“On the seventh, you will die.”

The prediction seems to have come true, although it all depends on what you count as an assassination attempt. Here’s my go at adding them up:

One. April, 1866. The Tsar is shot at outside the Summer Garden in St Petersburg by a disaffected nobleman called Dmitri Karakazov. Alexander is saved because a bystander nudges Karakazov’s arm as he pulls the trigger.

Two. May, 1867. This attempt takes place in Paris itself on the very trip mentioned above. While travelling in an open carriage, the Tsar is shot at by Polish emigré Antoni Berezowski, apparently acting alone. The bullet whizzes past Alexander’s ear.