She not only spoke it but insisted that it had a place in the buttoned-up discourse of civic life

She not only spoke it but insisted that it had a place in the buttoned-up discourse of civic life. Such language, coded as feminine, is too often dismissed as inappropriate, as somehow inferior, as far too emotional to be worth taken seriously. She was not a traditional political figure but in realising that her life had been shaped by circumstances beyond her control, that a role had been written for her that she could no longer play, she ruptured the divine order, triggering the desire for a new kind of monarchy.Endeavouring to live both inside and outside the institution that made her who she was, she short-circuited the relationship between the monarchy and its subjects through another powerful institution - the media - which was as interested in her weaknesses as it was in her strengths. Her instinctive populism meant that she was always the biggest show in town However we are to define star quality, she had it. It was George Michael who once said that what makes a star is not having that little bit extra but having something missing Diana's appetite for attention appeared insatiable.

Her quest for privacy was seen as impossible, as if she had signed a Faustian pact. In making the private public, she sacrificed her personal life. The real Faustian pact however is surely between sections of the press and its readers who in their millions wanted to see every tear this woman shed.Camille Paglia wrote of the atavistic religious emotion that the cult of Diana stimulated. Now she is dead, the canonisation of the martyr will assume epic proportions. Yet we should remember that Diana died after dinner at the Ritz with her new lover She was living her extraordinary life to the full.

She wanted to be taken seriously and now the whole world is finally taking her very seriously indeed.In that fateful interview when she and Charles announced their engagement and were asked if they were in love, Charles made the awful mistake of questioning what love meant Diana we always felt knew what love meant. Now she is lost, never to be replaced, our public grief shows that she was loved more than she ever knew.. The Prince of Wales brought the body of his former wife, Diana, home to Britain last night as the nation struggled to come to terms with her violent death. In part, the mood was one of simple grief at the loss of a 36-year-old woman in her prime, a "People's Princess" who had become the most famous woman in the world, killed by the hideous banality of a car crash.

But there was also a growing sense of anger at the manner of her death - in a high-speed chase escaping a pack of paparazzi photographers in Paris - prompting claims that sections of the media had "blood on their hands". The tragedy also led to calls for the introduction of tougher privacy laws. Seven photographers were last night being questioned by police in Paris over their part in the motorcycle pursuit of Diana and her close friend Dodi Fayed, son of the Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, who was also killed in the crash.Mr Fayed's body was brought back to Britain last night in a coffin draped in black cloth and taken to the central London mosque in Regent's Park. Raafat Maglad, muezzin at the mosque, said Mr Fayed attended funeral prayers for his son in a service which lasted 25 minutes. He was later buried in a private ceremony at Brookwood Cemetery near Guildford, Surrey.French police sources last night said charges of dangerous driving and failing to take action to prevent the loss of life could be brought against some of the photographers. The sources said that some of the pack were taking pictures within seconds of the crash. Mr Fayed announced last night that he intended to bring a law-suit against the photographers involved and their employers.The anger was expressed most clearly by the Princess's brother, Earl Spencer, at his home in South Africa, who said that every owner or editor who had paid for intrusive photographs of his sister had "blood on their hands".