| ORSINI | Italian nationalist Felice, who tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Napoleon III in January 1858 (6) |
| THIRDREPUBLIC | Governmental system of France between the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 and the German occupation of 1940 (5,8) |
| PIERRE | "War and Peace" character who determines through numerology that he is destined to assassinate Napoleon |
| EDITOR | ?tried unsuccessfully to hide the hole from the boss (6) |
| KIMONO | Word that a Kardashian tried (unsuccessfully) to trademark in 2019 |
| TIRADE | Tried unsuccessfully to curb autocrat's original outburst (6) |
| ORSINIPLOT | 1858 conspiracy to assassinate Napoleon III (6,4) |
| STATEN | There's a memorial to Italian nationalist Garibaldi in this New York borough, ... Island |
| DIETER | Tried, unsuccessfully but with energy, to lose weight? (6) |
| NEPHEW | Napoleon III, to Napoleon |
| STRIDE | Tries unsuccessfully to get large number in step (6) |
| BRUTUS | Marcus Junius ---, Roman statesman who led the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar (6) |
| KAPLAN | Fanny __, woman executed in 1918 after a failed attempt to assassinate Lenin (6) |
| HITMAN | A person who is hired to assassinate someone (6) |
| CARTON | Tries unsuccessfully to grab small sibling (6) |
| SISTER | Tries unsuccessfully to grab small sibling (6) |
| MISTER | Monsieur tries unsuccessfully to be an English gentleman (6) |
| SATIRE | Tries unsuccessfully to screen a spoof (6) |
| NIMROD | Sent aloft to assassinate but stopped by Mr Hunter (6) |
| JAMESI | King whom Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes and others attempted to assassinate in the Gunpowder Plot (5,1) |
