 Irritable, boastful, easily angered, insecure about his humble origins, Marigny was nevertheless an intelligent and energetic administrator concerned with the importance of his work.He encouraged history painting and, in architecture, the return to classical sources, which would become French neoclassicism.He sponsored the architect Soufflot, whom he chose for the construction of the new Église Sainte-Geneviève (today the "Panthéon"), a major work in the neoclassical style.