to maintain with all his power the new constitution ; and, in case of any priest's refusal, it was declared that he should be held to have renounced his benefices. To this constitution the pope had refused his sanction, on account of its hostility to the interests of the Church, and the oath was indignantly refused by the great ma- jority of the clergy. When the day arrived for the taking it by the bishops and clergy of the Assembly, an infuriated mob surrounded the hall, threatening death to all who should refuse. On this occasion also INIaury displayed his usual intrepidity, and boldly advocated the independence of his order. " Strike, but hear me," was his exclamation, when the last efforts of his impas- sioned eloquence in that Assembly were mterrupted by the incessant cries of his political antagonists. At the close of the stormy session of the National Assembh', Maurj^, who coidd lend no further aid to the prostrate cause of royalty and religion, quitted his native coun- try', and, at the invitation of Pius VI, took up his resi- dence at Rome. He was there received with the high- est distinction, and the loss of his benefices in France was more than compensated by his speedy elevation to the highest positions in the gift of the Roman Church. In 1792 he was named archbishop of Nicaa "in partibus infidelium,'' and afterwards appointed apostolical nun- cio to the diet held at Frankfort for the election of the emperor Francis II. This mission accompUshed, in 1794 he was elevated to the dignity of a cardmal, and was instituted to the united sees of IMonte-Fiascone and Cometo. On the invasion of Italy by the French in 1798, though every effort was made to seize cardinal INIaury, he escaped under disguise to Venice, where he assisted at the conclave assembled for the election of Pius VII. In 1799 he returned to Rome upon the conquest of Italy by Suwarrow, and was accredited as ambassador to his exiled king, Louis XVIII, at that time a resident of Mit- tau. This office he resigned on the reconciliation of the Church of Rome with the government of France un- der Napoleon (in 1804) ; thereafter he embraced the cause of the first consul, and was permitted to return to France. This position, which was deemed not to be in unison with the tenor of his former conduct, subjected him in after times to the reproaches and persecutions of the party whom he had served with so much person- al hazard. Napoleon gladly received the approaches of so distinguished a member of the Church whose es- tablishment he was restoring in France ; an interview took place between them at Genoa, and in May, 1806, Maury reappeared at Paris. The flattering reception he there met with was calculated to attach him to the interests of this chief, who admitted him to his intima- cy, and availed himself of his counsels in ecclesiastical matters. He received the pension assigned to the dig- nity of a French cardinal, and was appointed first almoner of Jerome Bonaparte. In 1807 he was elected a member of the Institute in the place of Target, one of the advocates of the unfortunate Louis XVI. His ac- ceptance in 1810 of the archbishopric of Paris subjected him to the displeasure of Pius A'll, between whom and Napoleon there had arisen much disagreement. Car- dinal Maury was a warm and sincere admirer of the emperor, and he not only espoused his cause in the dis- putes with the head of the Church, but took every oc- casion, which the frequent victories of this chief af- forded him, of testifying his gratitude by expressions of admiration in his mandates to the clergy of his diocese. These mandates, written in a style of the most florid eloquence, do not remind us of the im- pressive and energetic orator of the National Assem- bly : they were severely criticised by the adherents of the ancient regime, and by the witty frequenters of the Parisian saloons, who styled them' "archiepis- copal despatches," in allusion to their military tone, and their imitation of the style and manner of Napo- leon's bulletins. After the capitulation of Paris on the 30th of INIarch, 1814, Maury was deprived by the Bour- bons of the administration of hi*^ diocese ; and, in their
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resentment for his adherence to Napoleon's fortunes, they forgot his former dariiii;- and powerful support of their tottering throne, lie then returned to Kome, where he was imprisoned during one j'ear by the orders of tlie pope; he was afterwards allowed to live in retire- ment on a pension which was given to him in com- pensation for his resignation of the see of Monte Fias- cone. In this retirement, deeply affected by the in- gratitude of his former party, and that of the pontiff, to whose elevation he had been instrumental, he died on the 1 1th of May, 1817. " Notwithstanding his extraor- dinary eloquence," says the duchess of Abrantes, who knew him intimately, " the abbe Maury had been be- fore the Revolution, what he was in proscription, what he continued under the empire, a man cf talent rather than a man of sense, and a curate of the time of the League, rather than an abbe of the reign of Louis XIV." She adds that his tigiire was in the highest degree dis- agreeable, but the description she gives of it appears rather a caricature than a portrait. His principal work, Essais sur l' Eloquence de la Chaire (3 vols. 8vo), pub- lished after his death by his nephew, Louis Siffrein Maury, still maintains its well-merited popularity. His mind was formed to appreciate the eloquence of Massil- lon, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue, and his criticisms on the other Frencli divines are in general as correct as they are temperate. In his review, however, of English pul- pit oratory, he manifests a want of acquaintance with the writings of its most celebrated preachers, such as Jeremy Taylor, Sherlock, and Barrow. He selected Blair as the best model of English eloquence, and the comparison which he draws between him and Massillon is necessarily most unfavorable to Blair. His own pan- egyric of St. Augustine is esteemed one of the finest pieces of French pidpit eloquence. He is also supposed, conjointly with the abbe de Boismont, to be the author of a ^vork entitled Lettres sur VEtat actuel de la Religion it du Clerge. en France. See Vie du Cardinal Maury (1827), by Poujbulat; Le Cardinal Maury, sa Vie et ses CEurres (1855); Hoefer, Nonr. Biog. Generale, s. v.; Monthly Review, vol. Ixix (1812), Appendix; English Cyclop, s. V.