Meantime the pope had threatened excommunication against the fathers of the Church who should continue to sit at Bâle, and had given them four months within which to present themselves at Ferrara. Their reply was a formal deposition of Eugenius. [Sidenote: First meeting of Council.] Upon the arrival of the imperial party at Ferrara and after long negotiations regarding questions of precedence, it was decided that the first meeting of the Council should be held on March 9, 1438, and it was so held, the business being merely formal. Four cardinals, twenty-five bishops, and other nobles had previously received the patriarch and conducted him to the pope, who rose from his throne, embraced him, and led him to a seat near him similar to those occupied by the cardinals. No decision could be taken during the four months’ delay. As the recalcitrants did not come in at the appointed time, a further postponement of two months was granted, probably for the reason that the pope knew that the princes of the West were still disposed rather to sympathise with the Council than with him. All this delay was in the highest degree irksome to the Greeks. Many of them had left their homes without much hope of arriving at a reconciliation, but when on reaching Ferrara they realised the discord which existed in the Roman Church itself not a few concluded that before anything could be done to complete the Union a reconciliation must take place among the Catholic factions themselves. During their long wait the restrictions imposed upon their movements aroused their suspicions. They complained that they were treated as prisoners. They could not leave the city without a permit. Three of the leading men who escaped to Venice were ignominiously brought back. They again escaped and this time found their way back to Constantinople. Nor was the treatment of the ecclesiastics such as might have been expected from hosts to guests. The bishop of Ferrara refused to allow the Greeks to celebrate in one of his great churches, declaring that he would not permit it to be polluted. The emperor and patriarch, for political reasons among others, were impatient to return, and did their utmost to urge on the work for which they had left their homes. [Sidenote: Business of Council commences.]