Usually at these kinds of formal affairs, the conversation is stale and awkward—but not with Princess Michael. At seventy-four years of age, she was loud and lovely, eccentric but with a great sense of humor. She delighted in telling me repeatedly that she had never changed any of her children’s diapers, and she gossiped to me about Princess Diana, saying how vulnerable she had been and that she had been miserable in the marriage right from the start. She also told me that the royal family had never been welcoming to Diana, who had basically been there to provide an heir to the throne. As she
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