When we arrived, General Gurko had already departed, and I found myself in the peculiar position of being introduced to the Emperor by his son, in the hallway outside his office – the Emperor’s office – and the Tsarevitch’s classroom, which was the room next door.

The Emperor was in a general’s uniform, though not his Cossack uniform, which he wore more rarely. A uniform that appeared to be in the British style. He looked very much like his cousin, the British king, whom I had seen in pictures. At a later date, the Emperor told me it was common for people to find similarities. Indeed, years before, he had been in England for the wedding of the British king, then a prince, and was in conversation with the prince when an aide to Queen Victoria approached the two of them and mistakenly presented Prince George with the Emperor’s invitation to the prince’s wedding. The two look-alikes played along and the aide left none the wiser.

What did you discuss in your first conversation?

Oh, no great affairs of state. No particular matters of business. You can be assured of that. It was simply an opportunity for him to make my acquaintance, but I had to be on my mettle nonetheless. He asked me if he should take it as a promising sign that an American had been sent to take an interest in their war. I assured him that, naturally, President Wilson was greatly interested in the war, and also in his empire and in friendship and cooperation between our nations.

He smiled then and, clearly not of a mind to let me get away with this convenient piece of diplomacy, he pushed with a little more force, saying, as though disappointed, ‘So, you are not here to tell me you have troops on ships setting a course for France?’ I had to confirm we did not.

He took me to a globe that he had on a corner table – a huge thing it was, in a wooden frame – and he showed me the breadth of Russia, though I knew it already. He pointed here and there and told me about the peoples and their peculiarities and superstitions, and their deep faith. ‘They make a Crown a necessity,’ he told me, ‘for a very long time, at least. They are ill-equipped for any alternative.’ I thought then of our revolutionaries in 1776, and wondered if they were entirely ready for government, but they pushed on anyway and made a fine fist of it once the war was won. But that notion seemed best kept to myself. He was making the point that the United States and Russia differed, in some notable ways, and it was not my place to debate him on the matter of their significance.