Repression must clearly be accompanied by reforms that would bridge over the gulf ever widening between the Government and the thinking classes of the people.  He began by persuading the Emperor to release several hundreds of suspects and to relax the severe measures adopted against the students of the Universities.  Lastly, he sought to induce the Czar to establish representative institutions, for which even the nobles were beginning to petition.  Little by little he familiarised him with the plan of extending the system of the Zemstvos, so that there should be elective councils for towns and provinces, as well as delegations from the provincial noblesse.  He did not propose to democratise the central Government.  In his scheme the deputies of nobles and representatives of provinces and towns were to send delegates to the Council of State, a purely consultative body which Alexander I. had founded in 1802.

Despite the tentative nature of these proposals, and the favourable reception accorded to them by the Council of State, the Czar for several days withheld his assent.  On March 9 he signed the ukase, only to postpone its publication until March 12.  Not until the morning of March 13 did he give the final order for its publication in the Messager Officiel.  It was his last act as lawgiver.  On that day (March 1, and Sunday, in the Russian calendar) he went to the usual military parade, despite the earnest warnings of the Czarevitch and Loris Melikoff as to a rumoured Nihilist plot.  To their pleadings he returned the answer, “Only Providence can protect me, and when it ceases to do so, these Cossacks cannot possibly help.”  On his return, alongside of the Catharine Canal, a bomb was thrown under his carriage; the explosion tore the back off the carriage, injuring some of his Cossack escort, but leaving the Emperor unhurt.  True to his usual feelings of compassion, he at once alighted to inquire after the wounded.  This act cost him his life.  Another Nihilist quickly approached and flung a bomb right at his feet.  As soon as the smoke cleared away, Alexander was seen to be frightfully mangled and lying in his blood.  He could only murmur, “Quick, home; carry to the Palace; there die.”  There, surrounded by his dearest ones, Alexander II. breathed his last.

In striking down the liberator of the serfs when on the point of recurring to earlier and better methods of rule, the Nihilists had dealt the death-blow to their own cause.  As soon as the details of the outrage were known, the old love for the Czar welled forth:  his imperfections in public and private life, the seeming weakness of his foreign policy, and his recent use of terrorism against the party of progress were forgotten; and to the sensitive Russian nature, ever prone to extremes, his figure stood forth as the friend of peace, and the would-be reformer, hindered in his efforts by unwise advisers and an untoward destiny.

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