Very naturally the proposition of the First Consul met with hostility and protest from many quarters, notably from Louis XVIII., and from the old Catholic party under the leadership of the emigrated bishops. Every conceivable objection to such a treaty was placed before the Holy Father in the hope of influencing him to reject the overtures of the French ruler. He was reminded that the First Consul was the same Bonaparte who had imposed upon the Holy See the Treaty of Tollentino with its spoliation of Papal territory, its seizure of 30,000,000 francs, and other like exactions; it was the same Bonaparte who but a short time before had become a Mussulman in order to gain the good graces of the Eastern peoples. Moreover, what real favor might the Pope expect from that French government which he had ignored at the time of his election by neglecting to send to France the notification of that fact, especially when he had taken pains to recognize the rightful authority of Louis XVIII., by including him among the sovereigns to whom letters of greeting were sent upon his accession to the Papal throne? To the great mass of the French Catholic people the Church and the throne were inseparably bound together; they had existed together for fourteen centuries; they had fallen together amidst the horrors of the Revolution, and hence if one was again to rise to its ancient place of power and usefulness it should only be in conjunction with the restoration of the other. Added to this was the personal claim of Louis XVIII., expressed in very decided terms, whereby he declared himself as the only ruler of the French people whom the Holy See should recognize, as he was the only one the Pope had hitherto recognized; hence if the Concordat of 1516, contracted by Leo X. and Francis I., was to be abrogated and supplied by another, this work belonged by right to the successor of that king and not to a usurper. In presenting these and similar objections to the Pope the exiled king had a worthy representative in the person of Cardinal Maury, a man of singular eloquence and of great personal influence, all of which was brought to bear upon the mind of the Holy Father and the members of the Sacred College.