Paris Letter: Very few of the hundreds of thousands of political refugees in France ever make peace with the regimes they fled from. Everything in Iradj Amini's life seemed to doom him to permanent exile from his native Iran.
PHis father, Dr Ali Amini, served as the Shah's ambassador to Washington, then as his prime minister. After the revolution and until his death in Paris in 1992, Amini snr headed an opposition party that advocated the return of the Pahlavi monarchy.
If Amini's father sometimes showed an independent spirit, not so his son Iradj. "I was very much in favour with the imperial family," he admits today. For years, Iradj Amini was diplomatic advisor to the Shah's sister, Princess Ashraf. Then he served as the Shah's last ambassador to Tunisia.
That is what makes Iradj Amini's return to Iran and the warm reception he received there so extraordinary.
Twenty-three years after the revolution, no one else from the imperial family's entourage has taken such a daring step.
Mr Amini is a tall, dignified, gentle man of 67. In the intervening years, he lived quietly as a writer in fashionable neighbourhoods of Paris.
The English translation of his history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, from its discovery by the founder of the Moghul dynasty in the 16th century until it became the property of Queen Victoria, was a best-seller in India. He then wrote another scholarly book, about Napoleon's brief alliance with Persia in 1807. It won an award from the Académie Francaise.
After more than two decades in exile, research for a book about his late father took Mr Amini back to Iran twice in the past 10 months. He will publish it in Tehran to mark the 100th anniversary of his father's birth.
"There are so many books written about Iran from the outside," he says. "I'd have felt like a coward if I hadn't gone there."
Mr Amini says the journeys reconciled him to his past. "I didn't lose anyone very dear to me in the revolution. Although my father's property was confiscated, I was able to live modestly abroad. These things made it easier."
When Mr Amini first approached the Iranian embassy here two years ago, "It was like going to the embassy of another planet." But the thing that impressed him most - and which has continued to impress him in all his dealings with the Islamic Republic - was the extreme courtesy of those he met.
Hojatolislam Seyyed Mahmoud Doai, the black-turbanned mullah who was a companion of Ayatollah Khomeni, is now a member of the Iranian parliament and the director of Ettelaat newspaper, whose archives are a main source for Mr Amini's book.
Mr Doai (56) supports the reformist Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. Mr Amini credits Mr Doai, who immediately befriended him, with "breaking down the wall" between the returning exile and the regime.
Mr Amini was reluctant to approach the Documentation Centre of the Islamic Revolution, which is run by conservative clergy. "There too, I was able to establish a dialogue," he says.
When he tells how the mullahs at the centre listened to his arguments in favour of easing dress restrictions on women, Mr Amini still sounds surprised.
If Iradj Amini can make peace with the Iranian revolution, why can't the US? The former imperial ambassador is appalled that President Bush included Iran in his "axis of evil".
"There are conservatives, liberals and yes, some extremists," he says. "But civil society is more and more democratic - you can't tar everyone with the same brush. You cannot compare Iran to North Korea or Iraq, which is a bloody dictatorship.
"The Iranians will talk to the US, but not under threat. As long as [the US Deputy Secretary of Defence, Mr Paul] Wolfowitz and [the US National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza] Rice insult a country with 2,500 years of history, it's not up to Iran to make the effort. What terrifies me is Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes."
Mr Amini wishes his compatriots would stop finding fault with their own past.
"When the Pahlavis came to power, they denigrated the Qajar dynasty. Then the revolution came and denigrated the Pahlavis - and now the ancien régime criticise the present system. We always think in terms of regimes, instead of the nation, as if those in power were not Iranians but invaders."
It was dangerous to return to Iran, Mr Amini's friends warned him.
"What I heard outside for 20 years was completely different from what I saw," he says. The exiles are entitled to their opinion, but "as far as I am concerned, I would never indulge in opposition from the safety of Washington, London or Paris."
He feels he could contribute to Iran's cultural life. "I would do it with pleasure - even if I am accused of working for the regime. I wouldn't be working for the regime, but for the interests of my country."