The court had a party in the assembly, the privileged classes, who remained for a long time silent, and took but a tardy share in the debates. This party consisted of those who during the dispute as to the orders had declared against union. The aristocratic classes, notwithstanding their momentary agreement with the commons, had interests altogether contrary to those of the national party; and, accordingly, the nobility and higher clergy, who formed the Right of the assembly, were in constant opposition to it, except on days of peculiar excitement. These foes of the revolution, unable to prevent it by their sacrifices, or to stop it by their adhesion, systematically contended against all its reforms. Their leaders were two men who were not the first among them in birth or rank, but who were superior to the rest in talents. Maury and Cazalès represented, as it were, the one the clergy, and the other the nobility. These two orators of the privileged classes, according to the intentions of their party, who put little faith in the duration of these changes, rather protested than stood on the defensive; and in all their discussions their aim was not to instruct the assembly, but to bring it into disrepute. Each introduced into his part the particular turn of his mind and character: Maury made long speeches, Cazalès lively sallies. The first preserved at the tribune his habits as a preacher and academician; he spoke on legislative subjects without understanding them, never seizing the right view of the subject, nor even that most advantageous to his party; he gave proofs of audacity, erudition, skill, a brilliant and well- sustained facility, but never displayed solidity of judgment, firm conviction, or real eloquence. The abbé Maury spoke as soldiers fight. No one could contradict oftener or more pertinaciously than he, or more flippantly substitute quotations and sophisms for reasoning, or rhetorical phrases for real bursts of feeling. He possessed much talent, but wanted the faculty which gives it life and truth. Cazalès was the opposite of Maury: he had a just and ready mind; his eloquence was equally facile, but more animated; there was candour in his outbursts, and he always gave the best reasons. No rhetorician, he always took the true side of a question that concerned his party, and left declamation to Maury. With the clearness of his views, his ardent character, and the good use he made of his talents, his only fault was that of his position; Maury, on the other hand, added the errors of his mind to those which were inseparable from the cause he espoused.