The Duke took a quick glance at himself in the mirror, an elaborately gilded one that had come originally from France and was, he knew, unique in both its age and its artistry.
Then, as the clock on the mantelpiece warned him that he only had a short time to reach the Czar’s apartments, he set off down the corridors that seemed every time he traversed them to grow longer and longer.
It was the custom for each Czar to occupy a different part of The Winter Palace from his predecessors and Alexander had chosen for himself one that in many ways echoed his taste for simplicity.
The first Romanov to dispense with Royal pomp, he wore no jewellery and refused to allow people to dismount when they met him on the quay.
He liked to wander among his guests and had patterned his behaviour on that o
