Twenty-nine cardinals, including Fesch, were then assembled in the French capital. How they should act with regard to the new marriage became soon a subject of grave consultation for them. Consalvi and di Pietro had not long arrived when it was publicly announced. Napoleon seemed disposed to treat them with courtesy. Consalvi had his audience six days after his arrival. Five other cardinals, new comers also, were presented at the same time. They were ranged together on one side, while the other cardinals remained opposite. Further on were the nobles, ministers, kings. [{16}] queens, princes, and princesses. When the emperor appeared, Cardinal Fesch stepped forward and began presenting the five. "Cardinal Pignatelli," said he. "Neapolitan," replied the emperor, and passed on. "Cardinal di Pietro," continued Fesch. The emperor stopped a moment, and said, "You have grown fat; I remember having seen you here with the Pope at my coronation." "Cardinal Saluzzo," said Fesch, presenting the third. "Neapolitan," replied the emperor, and walked on. "Cardinal Desping," said Fesch, as the fourth saluted. "Spanish," replied the emperor. "From Majorca," cried Desping, in alarm. But Napoleon had already reached Consalvi, and ere Cardinal Fesch could say the name, he exclaimed, in the kindest tone, and standing still, "Oh, Cardinal Consalvi; how thin you have become! I should hardly have recognized you." "Sire," replied Consalvi, "years accumulate. Ten have passed since I had the honor of saluting your majesty." "That is true," resumed Napoleon; "it is now almost ten years since you came for the concordat. We made that treaty in this very hall; but what purpose has it served? All has vanished in smoke. Rome would lose all. It must be owned, I was wrong to displace you from the ministry. If you had continued in that post, things would not have been carried so far."
Listening only to the fear of having his actions misconstrued by the public, Consalvi instantly replied with energy, "Sire, if I had remained in that post, I should have done my duty." Napoleon looked at him fixedly, made no answer, and then going backward and forward through the half-circle formed by the cardinals, began a long monologue, enumerating a number of grievances against the Pope and against Rome for not having adhered to his will by refusing to adopt the system offered. At length, being near Consalvi, he stopped, and said a second time, "No, if you had remained at your post, things would not have gone so far." Again Consalvi replied, "Your majesty may believe that I should have done my duty." Napoleon gave the cardinal another fixed glance, and then without reply recommenced his walks, continuing his former discourse. At last he stopped near Cardinal di Pietro, and said for the third time, "If Cardinal Consalvi had remained secretary of state, things would not have gone so far." Consalvi was at the other end of the little group of five, and need not have answered; but earnest to exonerate himself from all suspicion, he advanced toward Napoleon, and seizing his arm, exclaimed, "Sire, I have already assured your majesty that had I remained in that post, I should certainly have done my duty." The emperor no longer containing himself, and with eyes steadily bent on Consalvi, burst forth into these words, "Oh! I repeat it, your duty would not have allowed you to sacrifice spiritual to temporal things." After this he turned his back on Consalvi, and going over to the cardinals opposite, asked if they had heard his words. Then returning to the five, he observed that the College of Cardinals was now nearly complete in Paris, and that they would do well to see among themselves if there was anything to propose or regulate concerning Church affairs. "Let Cardinal Consalvi be of the committee," added Napoleon; "for if, as I suppose, he is ignorant of theology, he knows well the science of politics."
At a second and third audience, Napoleon showed similar kindness to Consalvi, always asking after his health, and remarking that he was getting fatter now. The cardinal only answered by deep salutations. 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.
According to Consalvi's account, the diocesan officialty of Paris on this occasion refused at first to intervene, on the ground of incompetency; but the emperor caused competency to be declared by a committee of bishops assembled at Paris, and presided over by Cardinal Fesch. The words, however, "declared competent," were not eventually inserted in the documents drawn up of the meeting; it was pretended instead that access could not be had to the Pope. But this pretended impossibility could of course arise only from the will of Napoleon.
Consalvi assures us that the preamble used by the committee in the first instance ran thus:
"The officialty, being declared competent, and without derogating from the right of the sovereign pontiff, to whom access is for the moment forbidden, proclaims null and void the marriage contracted with the Empress Josephine, the reasons for such decision being stated in the sentence." But when it was remarked how prejudicial this avowal would be, the government made it disappear from among the acts of the ecclesiastical curia. For it had been previously arranged that all papers relative to this affair should be submitted to government. According to general report in Paris, some of the papers were burnt, and others changed. A person belonging to the officialty succeeded, however, in secretly saving a part, and especially the beginning of the sentence, which was as given above.
Consalvi does not so much as name the validity or invalidity of the marriage; the point to establish for him was that the right of cognizance [{18}] belonged solely to the Holy See. The incident he mentions of the papers destroyed has no other importance than as showing how conscience at first pronounced and how a strong hand silenced its expression.