Destined for a medical career by his father, he instead decided to study law,[3] and after receiving a solid education Maret entered the legal profession, becoming a lawyer at the King's Council in Paris.

The journalist Charles-Joseph Panckoucke (1736–1798), owner of the Mercure de France and publisher of the famous Encyclopédie (1785), persuaded him to merge this in a larger paper, Le Moniteur Universel, which gained a wide repute for correctness and impartiality.

[4] He was a member of the moderate club, the Feuillants, but, with the overthrow of the monarchy and the insurrection of 10 August 1792 he accepted a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he sometimes exercised a steadying influence.

On the withdrawal of the British legation, Citizen Maret (as he was then known) went on a mission to London, where he had a favourable interview with William Pitt the Younger on 22 December 1792 – all hope of an accommodation was, however, in vain.

[4] After a space in which he held no diplomatic post, he became Ambassador of the French Republic to the Kingdom of Naples; but, while negotiating with Charles de Sémonville he was captured by the Austrian Empire and was kept for some thirty months, until, at the close of 1795, the two were set free in return for the liberation of Princess Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, the daughter of ex-King Louis XVI.

He was extremely devoted to Napoleon, as shown by his work to pass into law the artifices adopted by the latter in April–May 1808 in order to make himself master of the destinies of Spain (see Peninsular War).

[4] In November 1813 Napoleon replaced Maret with Armand, Marquis of Caulaincourt, who was known to be devoted to the cause of peace and had a personal connection to Tsar Alexander I of Russia.