A state of siege followed, during which the demoralized Tsar avoided public appearances amidst sensational rumors in the press of additional attacks in the offing. One French diplomat likened the Tsar to a ghost—"pitiful, aged, played out, and choked by a fit of asthmatic coughing at every word". In response to the security crisis the Tsar established a new Supreme Commission for the Maintenance of State Order and Public Peace, under the command of Mikhail Loris-Melikov, a hero of the Russo-Turkish War. Just over a week later, a "Narodnovolets" terrorist attempted to assassinate Loris-Melikov with a handgun, firing a shot but missing, only to be hanged two days later. Repression was ratcheted upwards, with two "Narodnaya Volya" activists executed in Kiev the following month for the crime of distributing revolutionary leaflets.