However, Karl faced determined opponents on two sides – Prince Metternich, who did not want to repeat his error in marrying Marie Louise to Napoléon I, and Archduchess Sophie, a Bavarian princess and sister-in-law of the new Kaiser Ferdinand I, who dominated the Vienna court with her strong personality, and was awaiting her son Franz-Josef's ascent to the imperial throne. France's ambassador to Vienna, the Count of Sainte-Aulaire, who had been put in charge of preparing the ground for an Austrian match, felt the possibility was difficult if not completely impossible. The new President of the Conseil, Adolphe Thiers, dreamed of concluding such a match and becoming a new Duke of Choiseul as the maker of a spectacular reversal in the alliances of Europe. Ferdinand Philippe and his younger brother, the Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, set out on a European tour on 2 May 1836. Ferdinand Philippe and Queen Marie-Amélie got off to a bad start when the young French Prince Royal refused to shave off the proud beard that had set a fashion among French youth. She wrote back to Queen Louise complaining that "there was a lack of tact there and of sentiments of convenience that afflicted me. I believe that Leopold I can say to him that a goatee beard on the face of a prince royal is contrary to all German manners. Here, [such a beard] is neither handsome nor fortunate, there it can be fatal." The two French princes were a great success in Berlin and Vienna, staying at the latter from 29 May to 11 June. However, the Marquis de Sémonville commented that "everyone has shaken their hand, but no one was close to them". Even if the young Prince Royal decidedly liked Archduke Karl and his daughter, Prince Metternich and the Archduchess Sophie put up a major barrage of problems, and news of Thiers (impatient to conclude the match) being on his way was enough to convince Louis Philippe to make a marriage proposal. He was refused, though to play to French susceptibilities the official version was that the refusal was because of the "feelings" of Archduchess Marie-Thérèse. Queen Louise wrote to her mother on 14 June 1836: "I am upset to see that you have thrown your all behind the cause of Austria [...] I have always thought that Chartres was of too high birth to marry she who seems to him the most minor princess in Germany; and I avow that I would better like to see him marry a princess from Lippe or Waldeck who was good and pretty and of robust health, rather than an archduchess of Austria who would bring us all sorts of evils in her dowry.