King Jerome's marriage with the young Princess Catherine of Wuertemberg added to the animation of the already brilliant court. The annulment of the young Prince's marriage with Miss Paterson had caused Napoleon much difficulty. When this marriage had been contracted at Baltimore, December 8, 1803, he had been only First Consul, and Jerome, a simple naval officer, was in no way under the control of the decree of the Senate, which was later to determine the civil conditions of the new Imperial family. But in his haste to marry the young and beautiful American girl, Jerome, who was but nineteen years old, had neglected, in spite of the advice of the French Consul, to demand the permission of his mother, Madame Letitia Bonaparte. This omission had not prevented the Bishop of Baltimore from celebrating the marriage. Napoleon, however, regarded it as null and void. It was not till February 22, 1805, that he obtained his mother's protest, and the 21st of the next March, by an Imperial decree, he annulled the marriage which displeased him, by his own authority. Yet, in the eyes of religion, this union still existed. The Emperor asked the Pope to pronounce it null, but Pius VII. gave the request a formal refusal, writing in June, 1805: "It is beyond our power in the present state of things, to pronounce it null. If we should usurp an authority we do not possess, we should render ourselves guilty of an abuse abominable before the throne of God; and Your Majesty himself, in his justice, would blame us for pronouncing a sentence contrary to the testimony of our conscience, and to the invariable principles of the church.... That is why we earnestly hope that Your Majesty will be convinced that the desire with which we are always animated to second his designs, so far as depends on us, particularly in a matter so closely concerning his august person, has been rendered idle by the absolute absence of power, and we entreat him to receive this sincere declaration as testimony of our really paternal affection." This was the beginning of the quarrel between the Pope and the Emperor. Pius VII. would not yield; but Napoleon found greater servility in the metropolitan officialty of Paris; and October 6, 1806, he secured a sentence pronouncing the nullity of his brother Jerome's marriage with Miss Paterson.