He refused to hear calumnious tales, but could not prevent anonymous letters passing into the hands of his secretary, and spoke of the Court of Russia as being stupidly turned against his wife by ‘machinations.’ One can understand from this why Colonel Maschine became the soul of the horrible conspiracy, and bent his whole mind to carry out a plan which has succeeded, through his perfect generalship as to _ensemble_, the minutest attention to details, the widest prescience, the coolest head and an utter unscrupulousness." _Ivanovich, The Servian Massacre (Contemporary Review, July, 1903)._ In the same issue of _The Contemporary_, Dr. Dillon wrote: "A graphic version of one scene of the tragedy, which was given to me by one of the murderers, Adjutant N., is as follows: ‘We were wild with passion, trembling with excitement, incapable of receiving any impressions from the things and people around us. Hence we cannot say who shot the King in the head, who in the heart. But I have a vivid recollection of some things. I remember turning out the electric light and going to fetch candles to light my comrades on the way. That done I remained together with them to the end. I remember our breaking into the King’s bedroom, finding it empty, and then looking into the Queen’s wardrobe room, where we found the pair. Who fired first? I don’t know; nobody knows. At first we did not fire at all. We drew our sabres and cut off the fingers of the King and Queen; four fingers were hewn from the King’s hand. Then we fired.’" _E. J. Dillon, Servia and the Rival Dynasties (Contemporary Review, July, 1903)._ The hideous crime which ended the reign of King Alexander excited horror everywhere except in Servia. There it seemed to be approved and rejoiced over universally, even the head of the national Servian Church, the Metropolitan of Belgrade, officiating at a thanksgiving service and commending the army for what it had done. Senators and Deputies of the Skupstchina filled the vacant throne by the election of Prince Peter Karageorgievitch, descendant of Kara Georg (Black George), the primary hero of the later struggle of the Servians with the Turk. King Alexander had been of the house of Milosh Obrenovitch, founder of the Obrenovitch dynasty, which supplanted that of Kara Georg. See in Volume I. of this work, BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14TH-19TH CENTURIES: SERVIA.