Besides that, with the single exception of Pfuel, all the speeches of those present had one thing in common that had been absent from the council of war in 1805 – a mixture of fear and panic at Napoleon’s genius, which betrayed itself in every protestation, however much they tried to hide it. Napoleon was assumed to be capable of anything; he was expected from all sides at once, and they were able to destroy one another’s proposals by the mere mention of his dreaded name. Pfuel seemed uniquely capable of treating even Napoleon like a barbarian, on a par with everyone else who opposed his theory. And apart from admiration, Pfuel also aroused a feeling of pity in Prince Andrey. The courtiers were beginning to adopt a new tone towards him, Paulucci had spoken out to the Tsar, and, more significantly, a kind of desperation was edging its way on to Pfuel’s own features, all of which made it clear that others already knew what he was beginning to feel – his downfall was not far away. And for all his self-assurance and sarcastic German bombast, he looked pathetic with his hair plastered down at the temples and sticking up in tufts at the back. Try as he might to conceal it with a great bluster of irritation and contempt, he was visibly in despair that the one chance of putting his theory to the test on a colossal scale and demonstrating its infallibility to the whole world was slipping away from him.
