The firmness he and Labrador showed at this first meeting took the others aback. They had grown used to heeding only each other, and it had not occurred to them that they would be obliged to argue points with the plenipotentiaries of powers they regarded as strictly passive players. ‘The intervention of these two persons violently disrupted our plans and reduced them to naught,’ recorded Gentz in his diary. ‘They protested against the form we had adopted, they berated us vigorously for two hours; it is a scene I shall never forget.’
