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. Thirteen cardinals resolved to brave any consequences rather than consent to a dereliction of duty; for their oath, when raised to the purple, binds them to maintain at all hazards the rights of the Church. The names of these thirteen were: Cardinals Mattei, Pignatelli, della Somaglia, di Pietro, Litta, Saluzzo, Ruffo Scilla, Brancadoro, Galeffi, Scotti, Gabrielli, Opizzoni, and Consalvi. The other fourteen held different shades of opinion, and only agreed in deciding not to oppose the emperor.