Here-captured by the pen of the beautiful Vavara Softa-is court life in Imperial Russia at its most glorious, and at its lowest, while the serfs suffered untold cruelties, the aristocracy gave itself over to unbridled sexual pleasures.

In this setting, Memoirs of a Russian Princess presents the touching, yet brutal, self-portrait of the Princess herself-her debaucheries, her tender love for the mechanical statue Belphegor, her tragic end as the mistress of Emperor Paul and the wife of Count Tarrasoff.