MAURY, Jean Siffrein (1746-1817), cardinal and archbishop of Paris, the great opponent of Mirabeau in the constituent assembly, and esteemed his rival in eloquence, was the son of a poor cobbler, and was born at Valréas in the Venaissin, the district in France which belonged to the pope. His quickness was soon observed by the priests of Avignon, where he was educated and took orders, and he determined to get what he could by it. He tried his fortune by writing éloges of famous persons, then a favourite practice; and in 1771 his éloge on Fénelon was pronounced next best to Laharpe’s by the Academy. The real foundation of his fortunes was the success of a sermon he preached on St Louis before the Academy in 1772, which caused him to be recommended to the king for an abbacy on the spot. In 1772 he published his Essai sur l'éloquence de la chaire, which, as well as his Principes d'éloquence, contains much good criticism, and remains a French classic. He became a favourite preacher in Paris, and was Lent preacher at court in 1781, when King Louis XVI. said of his sermon, “If the abbé had only said a few words on religion he would have discussed every possible subject.” In 1781 he obtained the rich abbey of Lions, worth 20,000 livres a year, and in 1785 he was elected to the Academy. His morals were as loose as those of his great rival Mirabeau, but he was famed in Paris for his wit and gaiety as well as for his eloquence and his immorality. In 1789 he was elected a member of the states-general by the clergy of Péronne, and from the first proved to be the most able and persevering defender of the ancien régime. It is said that he attempted to emigrate both in July and in October 1789; but, whether he did or not, he after that time held firmly to his place, when ...almost universally deserted by his friends. His life was often in danger among the people, but his ready wit always saved it, and it was said that one bon mot would preserve him for a month. At last, in 1792, he found it necessary to fly from Paris; the Revolution had gone too far. When he did emigrate he found himself regarded as a kind of martyr to the church and the king, and was at once named cardinal, archbishop in partibus, and extra nuncio to the diet at Frankfort. He was finally made bishop of Montefiascone, and settled down in that little Italian town,—but not for long, for in 1796 the French drove him from his retreat, and he became ambassador, but with hardly any pay, of the exiled king Louis XVIII. to the pope. Such a life soon wearied a man who had been accustomed to wealth and reputation, and in 1804 he began to prepare his return to France by a well-turned letter to Napoleon, congratulating him on restoring religion to France once more. In 1806 he did return; in 1807 he was again received into the Academy; and in 1810, on the refusal of Cardinal Fesch, was made archbishop of Paris. On the restoration of the Bourbons he was summarily turned out of the Academy, and sent to Rome to answer for his disobedience to the pope. There he was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo for six months, and died in 1817, a year or two after his release, of disease contracted in prison, and of chagrin.
There are two sides to Maury’s character to be discussed. As a critic he was a very able writer, and Sainte-Beuve gives him the credit of discovering Bridaine, and giving Bossuet his rightful place as a preacher above Massillon; as a politician, his wit and eloquence make him a worthy rival of Mirabeau, and an interesting character in the early years of the Revolution. If in later years he forsook his old tenets, and joined Napoleon, his punishment was terribly severe, and it would have been a graceful act if Louis XVIII. had remembered the courageous supporter of Louis XVI., and the pope the one intrepid defender of the church in the states-general.
The Oeuvres choisis du Cardinal Maury (f> vols., 1842) contain whut is worth preserving. For his life and character see Vie du Cardinal Maury par son neveu, 1827; Poujoulat, Cardinal Maury, sa vie et ses oeuvres, 1855; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. iv.
MAURY, Matthew Fontaine (1806-^873), American naval officer and lιydrograplιer, was born in Spottsylvania county, Virginia, January 14, 1806. In 1825 he entered the American navy as midshipman, circumnavigating the globe in the “Vincennes,” during a cruise of four years. In 1836 he was made lieutenant, and gazetted astronomer to an exploring expedition. In 1839 he met with an accident which resulted in permanent lameness, and unfitted him for active service. Maury was placed in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, out of which have grown the United States Naval Observatory and the Hydrographic Office. He laboured assiduously and with complete success to place the depot in a state of efficiency. While in the “Vincennes,” and in subsequent cruises, Maury made many observations as to the winds and currents, and when in charge of the Hydrographic Office he set himself to collect further data by distributing to captains of vessels specially prepared log-books. So successful was he in this enterprise that in the course of nine years he had collected a sufficient number of logs to make two hundred manuscript volumes, each with about two thousand five hundred days’ observations. One result was to show the necessity for combined action on the part of maritime nations in regard to ocean meteorology. This led to an international conference at Brussels in 1853, which produced the greatest benefit to navigation as well as indirectly to meteorology. One result was the establishment of the meteorological department of the English Board of Trade, now known as the Meteorological Office, which adopted Maury’s model log-books. In 1853 he published his Letters on the Amazon and Atlantic Slopes of South America, and in 1855 he was promoted to the rank of commander. On the outbreak of the American civil war in 1861, Maury threw in his lot with the South, and, having lost nearly his all, retired to England, where he was presented with a handsome testimonial raised by public subscription. Afterwards he became imperial commissioner of emigration to Maximilian of Mexico, on whose death he took up his residence in Virginia, where he died on February 1, 1873.
In 1848 Maury published a Treatise on Navigation, which was long used as a text-book in the United States navy. The work, however, by which he is best known is his Physical Geography of the Sea, the first edition of which was published in London in 1855, and in New York in 1856; it was translated into several European languages. The theories which it contains are now generally admitted to be quite erroneous. Maury’s reputation rests on the eminent services he rendered to navigation and meteorology, he having been the first to show how the latter could be raised to the certainty of a science. He was essentially a practical man; his great aim was to render navigation more secure and economical, and in this he was eminently successful. Other works published by Maury are the papers contributed by him to the Astronomical Observations of the United States Observatory, Letters concerning Lincs for Steamers crossing the Atlantic (1854), Physical Geography (1864), and Manual of Geography (1871). In 1859 he began the publication of a series of nautical monographs.
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