69

1867 marked Russia’s first participation in an International Exhibition held in France. Indeed, this World Fair took place during a critical moment of the relations between France and Russia—i.e. a few years after the brutal Crimean War had ended and yet also before the two countries’ rapprochement at the end of the nineteenth century. When Napoleon III invited the Tsar to visit the exhibition, his aim was to forge an alliance. However, there were many points of contention between them, and the International Exhibition crystallized these tensions. Not only were the negotiations getting nowhere, but on June 6, 1867, a Polish immigrant attempted to assassinate the Tsar while he was out for a walk with Napoleon III. Alexander II expected that the perpetrator would be sentenced to death, but the latter was only sentenced to lifelong hard labor thanks to his lawyer’s defense. The negotiations between the two emperors did not go any further, and three years later, Alexander II did not help to prevent the Second Empire from collapsing.