Maury represented the clergy, of which body he was a member; Cazales, the _noblesse_, to whom he belonged.

The one, Maury, early trained to struggles of polemical theology, had sharpened and polished in the pulpit the eloquence he was to bring into the tribune.

Sprung from the lowest ranks of the people, he only belonged to the _ancien regime_ by his garb, and defended religion and the monarchy as two texts, imposed upon him as themes for discourses.

His conviction was the part he played; any other appointed character would have suited equally well; yet he sustained with unflinching courage and admirable consistency that which had been "set down for him." Devoted from his youth to serious studies, endowed with abundant flow of words, striking and vivid in his language, his harangues were perfect treatises on the subjects he discussed.

The only rival of Mirabeau, he needed but a cause more natural and more sterling to have become his equal: but sophistry could not deck abuses in colours more specious than those with which Maury invested the _ancien regime_.
Historical erudition and sacred learning supplied him with ample sources of argument.