On 27 February 1898, father and daughter were returning from a ride in a landau to the beach at Phaleron, when they were shot at by two riflemen. The King tried to shield his daughter; both were unhurt though a footman and both horses were wounded. A church was later built on the site of the assassination attempt. A Russian marriage Princess Maria wanted to spend her entire life in Greece instead of following the traditional path of Princesses of her time that had to marry a foreign prince and move abroad. In her late teens, she fell in love with a Greek commoner, but her parents did not allow her to contract an unequal union. She just turned twenty years old when, in April 1896, during the Olympics games held in Athens, King Alexander I of Serbia (last representative of the Obrenović dynasty) proposed to her. Princess Maria found King Alexander too ugly and rejected him. Since her childhood, Princess Maria of Greece had visited Russia many times with her mother, who remained very attached to her native country. They usually stayed at Pavlovsk Palace with Princess Maria's maternal grandmother, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna. While in Russia, in summer 1894, for the wedding of her cousin Grand Duchess Xenia to Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, Princess Maria became smitten with the groom's brother, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia, who was her mother's first cousin. However, he had no interest in her then. In a subsequent visit to Russia in the autumn of 1895, they were reunited at a Court Ball. This time she found him too old and boring and was no longer interested. On the other hand, he fell in love with her and asked to marry him. She turned him down, to the dismay of Maria's mother, Queen Olga, who was in favor of a Russian marriage for her daughter. In spring 1896, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich arrived in Athens and proposed while they were playing billiards. She accepted him and the engagement was officially announced on 4 April 1896. The wedding was to take place a few months later in the summer. However, she had a change of heart and after putting off the wedding date twice, she broke off the engagement in October. For five years, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia persisted in his intention. Twice a year, he proposed to Princess Maria who