The very day that the Ecclesiastical Committee had affirmed the competence of the diocesan officials, it received from the Archchancellor Cambacérès a petition stating that the nuptial blessing given to Napoleon and Josephine had not been preceded, accompanied, or followed by the formalities prescribed by the Canon laws; that is to say, it lacked the presence of the proper priest--as the parish priest was termed--and of witnesses. To these two grounds for annulment a third was added, a new one, which could not fail to surprise the officials. It was one which in general is applicable only to a minor, wrought upon by surprise and violence; namely, lack of consent,--yes, lack of the Emperor's consent. Napoleon saw very clearly that the first two points were mere quibbles, and that the moment when he intended that his uncle, the Grand Almoner, should bless his marriage with Marie Louise, was, to say the least, a singular one to choose for denouncing his incapacity for consecrating his union with Josephine. As to the absence of witnesses, that is to be explained as due to a special dispensation of the Pope, who wished to avoid the scandal of announcing to the whole world that Napoleon, who had been married by civil, but not by religious rites, had in the eyes of the Church been living for eight years in concubinage, in spite of the entreaties of the Empress to put an end to a state of things which pained her conscience and filled her with constant dread of divorce. The Emperor consequently laid the chief weight on his lack of consent. Count d'Haussonville in his remarkable book, _The Church of Rome and the First Empire_, says on this subject: "Setting aside the religious feeling with regard to the sanctity of marriage, it is hard to understand how such a man could have been willing to represent himself as having desired, on the eve of this great ceremony of consecration, to deceive at the same time his uncle who married him, his wife whom he seemed pleased to associate with his glory, and the venerable pontiff who, in spite of his age and infirmities, had come from a long distance, to call down upon him the blessing of the Most High. This argument offended not only every feeling of delicacy, but also the plainest principles of honest and fair dealing." The officials were not moved by such scruples. They exercised a twofold jurisdiction,--as a diocesan and as a metropolitan tribunal,--and both affirmed the nullity of the marriage. The metropolitan tribunal, while admitting the first two grounds,--namely, the absence of witnesses and of the proper priest,--based its decision principally on the non-consent of the Emperor. The diocesan tribunal had declared that to atone for the infringement of the laws of the Church, Napoleon and Josephine should be compelled to bestow a sum of money to the poor of the parish of Notre Dame. The metropolitan tribunal struck this clause out as disrespectful.