The incident is perhaps still in the reader's recollection. The Shah, with the court minister by his side and General Parent, the chief French officer attached to his person, seated facing him, had just left the Sovereign's Palace to drive to the exhibition, when a man sprang on the step of the open landau, produced a revolver and took aim at the monarch's chest. Before he had time, however, to pull the trigger, a hand of iron fell upon his wrist and clutched it with such force that the man was compelled to let go his revolver, which fell at the feet of the sovereign, while the would-be murderer was arrested by the police. Mohamed Khan, by this opportune and energetic interference, had prevented a shot the consequences of which would have been disastrous for the Shah and very annoying for the French government, all the more so inasmuch as the author of this attempt was a French subject, a sort of fanatic from the South, to whom the recent assassination of King Humbert of Italy had suggested this fantastic plan of making away with the unoffending Muzaffr-ed-Din. Here is a curious detail: I had received that very morning an anonymous letter, dated from Naples, but posted in Paris, in which the sovereign was warned that an attempt would be made on his life. Although this kind of communication was frequent, I had ordered the supervision to be redoubled inside the palace; as a matter of fact, I did not much fear a surprise outside, as the Shah never drove out but his carriage was surrounded by a detachment of cavalry. Now ill-luck would have it that he took it into his head to go out that day before the time which he himself had fixed and without waiting for the arrival of the escort: I have shown the result. During the whole of this tragic scene, which lasted only a few seconds, he did not utter a single word; the pallor which had overspread his cheeks alone betrayed the emotion which he had felt. Nevertheless, he ordered the coachman to drive on. When, at last, they reached the Champs Élysées and he perceived numerous groups waiting to cheer him, he emerged from his stupor: "Is it going to begin again?" he cried, in accents of terror. 3. He was given, in fact, to easy and strange fits of alarm. He always carried a loaded pistol in his trowsers-pocket, though he never used it. On one of his journeys in France, he even took it into his head to make a high court-official walk before him when he left the theatre, carrying a revolver pointed at the peaceable sightseers who had gathered to see him come out. As soon as I saw this, I ran up to the threatening body-guard: "Put that revolver away," I said. "It's not the custom here." But I had to insist pretty roughly before he consented to put away his weapon.