Principally through Consalvi's influence, the cardinals, in a collective letter addressed to the emperor, declined acting in any way while separated from their head, the Pope. Napoleon had angrily torn their letter to pieces; but even this opposition to his will had not changed his courtesy {17} toward Consalvi, as seen above. He was bent on creating a schism between them and the Pope. Fesch, his ready instrument, proposed several steps as beneficial to religion, but the majority of cardinals refused to do anything. Unlike many of his colleagues, Consalvi held aloof from all society. Beside the prohibition of the Pope, who at Rome had forbidden the members of the Sacred College to assist at festivities while the Church was in mourning, he considered it unworthy conduct for them to take part in amusements while their head remained in captivity, or to seem to court one who had brought such calamities on the Holy See. While invited to discuss ecclesiastical matters in committee for presentation to the emperor, the cardinals were not by any means requested to give an opinion on the new marriage. But it became very necessary that they should have one as the time approached for the arrival of Marie-Louise, and for the celebration of the marriage ceremonies in Paris. She reached Compiègne on the 27th of March. Napoleon, to spare her the embarrassment of a public meeting, had surprised her on the road, and they entered the little town together. A few days after they proceeded to St. Cloud. Four ceremonies were to take place. First there was to be a grand presentation on the 31st of March, at St. Cloud, of all the bodies in the state, the nobles and other dignitaries. The next morning the civil marriage was to be celebrated also at St Cloud. The 2d of April was fixed for the grand entrance of the sovereigns into Paris, and for the solemnity of the religious marriage in the chapel of the Tuileries; the following morning another presentation of the state bodies and the court was to take place before the emperor and the new empress seated on their thrones. Twenty-seven cardinals had taken counsel together; for Fesch, as grand-almoner to the emperor, was out of the question, and Caprara was dying. They had decided, after deliberate research, that matrimonial cases between sovereigns belong exclusively to the cognizance of the Holy See, which either itself pronounces sentence at Rome, or else through the medium of the legates names local judges for instituting the affair.