As a woman Princess Dorothea Lieven, wife to the Russian ambassador in London from 1812 to 1834, was debarred from having any formal power in the world of international diplomacy. But as mistress of, among others, Metternich, Lord Grey, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston and a favourite of George IV, she mixed sex with politics, using her relationships with the great men of Europe to further Russia's aims. THE PRINCESS AND THE POLITICIANS is both a riveting political history of Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, and a portrait of a spirited, fascinating woman who sought to influence the destiny of nations by playing the men at their own game.