This measure of the government was caused by irritation on learning that charitable persons had united to make up a general fund every month for the support of the cardinals, and it was wished to put a stop to the proceeding. Consalvi concludes the memoirs of his private life about this time, expressing a fear that the business mentioned above will not end with the interrogatory, but may bring about disastrous consequences. He also says, "We live in exile; foregoing all society, as becomes our situation and that of the Holy See and the sovereign pontiff our head. The red cardinals, I am told, remain in Paris, and go much in the world, but are not esteemed for their late conduct." It is curious to contract with the preceding account the manner in which M. Thiers disposes of this same episode. "On the day of the emperor's marriage," says that historian, "thirteen out of twenty-eight cardinals failed to be present at the ceremony. The motive, which they dared not assign, but which it was desired to make the public understand, was that, without the Pope, Napoleon could not divorce, and thence, the first marriage still subsisting, the second was irregular. This motive was unfounded, since no divorce had taken place (for in effect divorce being forbidden by the Church could only have been pronounced by the Pope), but simply annulment of the marriage with Josephine, pronounced by the ordinary after all the degrees of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been exhausted." [Footnote 1] [Footnote 1: M. Thiers here falls into a grave error: divorce being contrary to the law of God, no Pope can pronounce one. The question was whether Josephine were lawfully married or not.] In reality, however, this conduct of the thirteen cardinals, acting in conformity with their head, Pope Pius VII., though cut off from all communication with him, was the protest of the Church against temporal despotism in things spiritual. The Church was in chains, but God had left her a living voice to proclaim her rights. Consalvi never for one instant quits his ground--the Church's right of judgment--to give a shadow of personal opinion on the matter in question. It is a fine spectacle also to see him with his few colleagues, deserted by so many of their own body, quietly discussing what degree of excommunication Napoleon had incurred, whether all contact was forbidden, while they inhabited his very capital, and knew well the stem nature of that inexorable will.