Which could not be said of her mother. I cannot be sure, to this day, whether the Grand Duchess was intending to impersonate the original Duchess of Richmond. It would seem logical, given the wording of the invitation, but the costume she had chosen was more suitable for a great empress, Catherine the Great maybe, or Maria Teresa, or any other absolute female monarch. Acres of chiffon blew softly this way and that, while a river, a torrent, of purple velvet, embroidered in thick, gold thread, cascaded from her more than ample shoulders to the floor and lay there in massive hillocks and dunes, its ermine trim forming a kind of plinth to set off the huge, majestic figure above. Her bosom, like a rock shelf beneath the sea, was ablaze with diamonds and a sparkling crown-like tiara rose from her lightly sweating brow. I suppose the display was all that remained of the Moravian crown jewels, either that or they had been rented from the Barnum Brothers for the night. This was a scene-stealing one-woman show and none of the others got a look in, least of all the wretched Dagmar who, knowing her mother, must have expected something of the sort. At any rate, while the crowds spun, buzzing, round her mama, she didn’t seem unduly put out, unlike the Grand Duke and the Crown Prince who both looked as if they were aching to go home. We were announced.

‘Good evening, Ma’am.’ I bowed and she accepted my obeisance gracefully. I moved on to her husband. ‘Your Royal Highness.’ I bowed again. He nodded vacantly, his mind probably on some long-ago Court reception in dark and dusty Olomouc. Leaving him to dream alone, I passed into the body of the room. Looking back, I think that evening was when I first understood what I have now come to recognise all around me, viz. that when it comes to aristocrats, or even royalty, most of the members of those worlds (who have not moved away from the whole performance entirely, that is) fall into separate, apparently similar but in fact quite disparate, groups. The first, made familiar by a million lampoons, have a clear understanding that the world of their youth and their ancestors has changed and will not be coming back, but they continue to mourn it. The cooks and the valets, the maids and the footmen who made life so sweet will never again push through the green baize door, busy with the tasks of the day. The smiling grooms who brought the horses round to the front at ten, the chauffeurs washing their gleaming vehicles, standing in deference when one strolled into the stable yard, the gardeners ducking out of sight at the sound of a house party’s approach, all that army dedicated to their pleasure have left for other climes. These people usually know, too, albeit half subconsciously, that the deference they still receive within their social circle is somehow thin and even false, compared to the real respect accorded to their parents and grandparents, when high birth had solid accountable value. They know these things, but they do not know what to do about them, other than to weep and live out their lives with as much comfort as they can muster.

Into this category one could squarely place the last Grand Duke of Moravia. There was something in his aimless and depressive grace that told of his awareness of the truth. ‘Don’t blame me,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘I understand this is absurd. I know you have no reason to bow and scrape before me, that the game is over, that the band has played, but I have to go through the forms, don’t you know? I have to look as if I take it seriously or I would be letting other people down.’ This was the text permanently hovering in the air above him. Of course, the same group boasts a nastier version. ‘It may be over,’ they flash from their pitiless eyes, ‘but it isn’t quite over for me!’ and they toss their heads and prey on their rich, social-climbing acolytes and sell the last of their mother’s jewels, that the show may struggle on for a few more years at least.

But the other category in this group is different from these and, as a type, is largely undetected by the general public. These men and women also have the status that pertains to them from the old system and they enjoy it. They like the rank and the history that supports them. They are glad to be seen as part of the inner circle of aristocratic Britain. They make sure that one member at least of the Royal Family is present at every major bash they throw. They dress, at least the men dress, to please the diehards. They shoot, they fish, they know their historic dates and other people’s genealogy. But all the time they are pretending. Far from being bewildered as to the workings of the new and harsher century, they understand precisely how it turns. They know the value of their property, just as they knew it would regain it. They fully grasp the intricacies of the markets, how and what to buy, what and when to sell, how to achieve the right planning permissions, how to manipulate the payments from the EU farming policy, in short, how to make the estate, and their position, pay.

They decided long ago that they did not want to belong to some fading club, endlessly nostalgic for better days that will never come again. They wanted to retake a position of influence and even power and if it was not, after the 1960s, to be overtly political power then so be it, they would find another route. They are fakes, really. Despite their lineage, despite their houses and their jewels and their wardrobes and their dogs, despite their mouthing the traditional prejudices of their class, they no longer think like most of their own kind. They belong to today and tomorrow, far more than to yesterday. They have brains and values as tough as any hedge fund manager’s. But then again, they would argue that they are only being true to their own race, truer than the defeatists, because the primal job of any aristocrat is to stay on top. Bourbon or Bonaparte, king or president, the real aristocrat understands who is in power and who should be bowed to, next.

Of course, forty years ago much of this was hidden from us. The old world had taken a swingeing blow during and after the war from which it was deemed unlikely to recover. Everyone lamented the end in unison and it was only much later that we began to realise we were not all in the same boat as we had thought, and that some families had not, after all, trodden the same downward path, whatever they may have said at the time. In many cases it was my own generation, debutantes then, with brothers at university or just starting out in the city, who began secretly to reject the notion of going down with the ship and started looking about for ways to get back to dry land. These would prove the survivors, and this group was the one to which the Grand Duchess of Moravia, in contrast to her fatalistic spouse, was drawn, even before it was truly formed. She wanted to create a beachhead within the new world, from which to re-launch the family. I liked her for it.

The music was starting now, a group had taken up their positions on the modest stage and were performing cover versions of the current top ten. They were not, I think, a very famous group, but at least they had been on television, which seemed considerably more exciting then than it does now, and couples were drifting on to the floor at the end of the long chamber. The ancient parents, sitting in their costumes on sofas against the wall, were less helpful to this part of the evening and several of them, sensing it, rose and moved towards the doorway leading to the sitting-out rooms and the bar. Lucy and I walked forward. As we did so there was a slight murmur of jostling admiration and I caught a glimpse of Joanna Langley surrounded by her customary group of admirers. She was brilliantly dressed as Napoleon’s sister, Princess Pauline Borghese. Her costume, unlike mine or most of the others, was new, copied, presumably for the occasion, from a portrait by David. Of course, the Princess would have been an unlikely guest at a ball given by her brother’s arch enemies and anyway, Joanna’s modern, celluloid beauty made her unconvincing as a period piece, but she was a joy to look at all the same.