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The Reverend Henri Grégoire | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byJoseph François, 1800 | |
| 5thPresident of the National Convention | |
| In office 15 November 1792 – 29 November 1792 | |
| Preceded by | Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles |
| Succeeded by | Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies forIsère | |
| In office 11 September 1819 – 4 November 1820 | |
| Succeeded by | Auguste Ravez |
| Constituency | Unknown |
| Member of the Conservative Senate | |
| In office 25 December 1801 – 11 April 1814 | |
| Monarch | Napoleon I |
| Preceded by | Aaron Jean François Crassous |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Member of the Legislative Body forLoir-et-Cher | |
| In office 25 December 1800 – 25 December 1801 | |
| Constituency | Blois |
| Member of the Council of Five Hundred forLoir-et-Cher | |
| In office 2 November 1795 – 10 November 1799 | |
| Constituency | Blois |
| Member of the National Convention forLoir-et-Cher | |
| In office 20 September 1792 – 2 November 1795 | |
| Constituency | Blois |
| Member of the National Constituent Assembly | |
| In office 9 July 1789 – 30 September 1791 | |
| Constituency | Nancy |
| Member of the Estates-General for theFirst Estate | |
| In office 13 June 1789 – 9 July 1789 | |
| Constituency | Nancy |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire (1750-12-04)4 December 1750 Vého, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 28 May 1831(1831-05-28) (aged 80) Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Resting place | Panthéon, Paris |
| Party | Left Group(1789–1791) Marais(1792–1795) Thermidorian(1795–1799) Anti-Bonapartist(1799–1814) Liberal Left(1819–1820) |
| Alma mater | University of Nancy |
| Profession | Clergyman |
| Awards | Commander of theLegion of Honor[1] |
| Signature | .JPG) |
Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire (French:[ɑ̃ʁiʒɑ̃batistɡʁeɡwaʁ]; 4 December 1750 – 28 May 1831), often referred to as theAbbé Grégoire, was a FrenchCatholic priest,constitutional bishop ofBlois and arevolutionary leader. He was an ardentabolitionist and supporter ofuniversal suffrage. He was a founding member of theBureau des longitudes, theInstitut de France, and theConservatoire national des arts et métiers.
Grégoire was born inVého nearLunéville,France, as the son of a tailor. Educated at theJesuit college atNancy, he becamecuré (parish priest) ofEmberménil in 1782. In 1783 he was crowned by the Academy of Nancy for hisEloge de la poésie, and in 1788 by that ofMetz for anEssai sur la régénération physique et morale des Juifs.
He was elected in 1789 by the clergy of thebailliage of Nancy to theEstates-General, where he soon made his name as one of the group of clerical and lay deputies ofJansenist orGallican sympathies who supported the Revolution. He was one of the first of the clergy to join the third estate, and thus contributed notably to theunion of the three orders. He presided in the session that lasted sixty-two hours whilethe Bastille was being attacked, and spoke vehemently against the supposed "enemies of the nation". He later took a leading role in theabolition of the privileges of the nobility and the Church.
Under the newCivil Constitution of the Clergy, to which he was the first priest to take the oath (27 December 1790), Grégoire was elected bishop by twodépartements. He selected that ofLoir-et-Cher, but assumed the old title ofbishop of Blois, and for ten years (1791–1801) governed his diocese with exemplary zeal.[clarification needed][2] An ardentrepublican, he strongly supportedCollot d'Herbois' motion for theabolition of the monarchy in the first session of theNational Convention (21 September 1792) with the memorable phrase "Kings are in morality what monsters are in the world of nature."[3]
On 15 November 1792, he delivered a speech in which he demanded that KingLouis XVI be brought to trial, and immediately afterwards was elected president of the Convention, over which he presided in his episcopal street dress. During the trial, being absent with other three colleagues on a mission for the union ofSavoy to France, he along with them wrote a letter urging the condemnation of the king, but attempted to save the life of the monarch by proposing that the death penalty should be suspended.
When, on 7 November 1793,Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel,bishop of Paris, was intimidated into resigning his episcopal office at the bar of the Convention, Grégoire, who was temporarily absent, hearing what had happened, faced the indignation of many deputies, refusing to give up either his religion or his office. This display of courage ultimately saved him from theguillotine.
Throughout theReign of Terror, in spite of attacks in the Convention, in the press, and on placards posted at the street corners, Grégoire appeared in the streets in his episcopal dress and celebrated dailyMass in his house. He was then the first to advocate the reopening of the churches (speech of 21 December 1794).
Grégoire also coined the termvandalism in reference to the destruction of property that occurred during the Revolution, both that which was ordered by theNational Convention and that which occurred at the hands of individuals.[4] In a series of three reports issued to theNational Convention in 1794, Grégoire advocated for additional protection of art works, architecture, inscriptions, books, and manuscripts. He is credited by scholars, such asJoseph Sax and Stanley Idzerda, as one of the founders of the idea ofpreservation of cultural objects.
The Abbé Grégoire is also known for advocating a unified French national language, and for writing theRapport sur la Nécessité et les Moyens d'anéantir les Patois et d'universaliser l'Usage de la Langue française (Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language),[5] which he presented on 4 June 1794 to theNational Convention.[6]
According to his own research, the vast majority of people in France spoke one of 33 dialects orpatois, and he argued that French had to be imposed on the population and all other dialects eradicated. Although he was natively raised with knowledge of theLorrain "patois", his conclusion came from a common view at the time within Jacobin circles that the linguistic diversity of France had been purposely used by the nobility of France to keep the various linguistic groups of France separated from one another and from the political institutions in which French was primarily spoken. That made Grégoire see the various patois as limiting to the ability of French citizens to practice their individual rights.[7]
However, his work was still influenced by the rising sense of French linguistic superiority that had been started byBertrand Barère withRapport du Comité de salut public sur les idiomes (1794).[8] He thus classifiedCorsican andAlsatian as "highly degenerate" (très-dégénérés) forms of Italian and German, respectively. In his view,Occitan was decomposed into a variety of syntactically-loose local remnants of the language oftroubadours that were mutually unintelligible and should be abandoned in favor of the language of Paris. Thus began a process that was expanded dramatically bythe policies ofJules Ferry a century later and led to the declining use of the regional languages in France.
In October 1789, Grégoire took a great interest inabolitionism after he had metJulien Raimond, a freecolored planter fromSaint-Domingue who was trying to win admission to theConstituent Assembly as the representative of his group. Grégoire published numerous pamphlets and later books on the subject ofracial equality.
Grégoire also became an influential member of theSociety of the Friends of the Blacks although the group and many others like it were seen as radical at the time. As a member of the National Assembly, Grégoire supported seemingly opposing views, such as the eradication of slavery in France, but also maintained his position as a member of the clergy, which was known for mostly wanting to keep slavery within France and its colonies. It was on Grégoire's motion in May 1791 that the Constituent Assembly passed its first law admitting some wealthy free men of color in the French colonies to the same rights as whites.
Later, he was recognized for his workDe la littérature des Nègres, which aimed to highlight the intellectual ability of black writers.[9] In 1810, the encyclopedia was published inNew York City in an English translation by the Irish republican exile in Paris,David Bailie Warden.[10]
Grégoire was considered a friend of theJews. He argued that in the French society, the supposed degeneracy of Jews was not inherent, but rather a result of their circumstances. He blamed the condition of the Jews on the way they had been treated, their persecution by Christians, and the "ridiculous" teachings of their rabbis, and believed they could be brought into mainstream society and made citizens.[11]
After the establishment of theDirectory in 1795, Grégoire was elected to theCouncil of Five Hundred. He and his fellow council members opposed thecoup d’état of18 Brumaire in which Napoleon seized power.[9] The day after the coup, the Council issued a proclamation warning the coup would cause France to revert to the times before the Revolution.[12]
Under Napoleon Bonaparte's rule, Grégoire became a member of theCorps Législatif, then of theSenate (1801). He was a leading voice at the national church councils of 1797 and 1801; but he was strenuously opposed to Napoleon's policy of reconciliation with theHoly See, and after the signature of the Concordat he resigned his episcopal see on 8 October 1801. He was one of the minority of five in the Senate who voted against the proclamation of theFrench Empire, and he opposed the creation of a newFrench nobility and Napoleon's divorce fromJoséphine de Beauharnais. Regardless, he was created aCount and officer of theLégion d'honneur.[13]
During the later years of Napoleon's reign he traveled toEngland andGermany, but in 1814 he returned to France.
After the restoration of the Bourbons, Grégoire remained influential, though as a revolutionary and aschismatic bishop he was also the object of hatred by royalists. He was expelled from theInstitut de France. From this time onward, he lived in semi-retirement, occupying himself in literary pursuits and in correspondence with other intellectual figures of Europe. He was compelled to sell his library to obtain means of support.[citation needed]
In 1814 he publishedDe la constitution française de l'an 1814, in which he commented on theCharter from aLiberal point of view, and this work reached its fourth edition in 1819, in which year he was elected to the Lower Chamber by thedépartement ofIsère. This was considered a potentially harmful episode by the powers of theQuintuple Alliance, and the question was raised of a fresh armed intervention in France under the terms of theTreaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. To prevent this,Louis XVIII decided on a modification of the franchise; theDessolles ministry resigned; and the first act ofCount Decazes, the new premier, was to annul the election of Grégoire.[citation needed]
Despite his revolutionaryGallican and liberal views, Grégoire considered himself a devout Catholic. During his 1831 final illness, he confessed to his parishcuré, a priest of Jansenist sympathies, expressing his desire for the last Sacraments of the Church.Hyacinthe-Louis De Quelen, the uncompromising royalistArchbishop of Paris, would only concede on condition that he retract his oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which Grégoire refused to do.[citation needed]
In defiance of the archbishop, the Abbé Baradère gave Grégoire theviaticum, while the rite ofextreme unction was administered by theAbbé Guillon, an opponent of the Civil Constitution, without consulting the archbishop or the parishcuré. The attitude of the archbishop caused uproar in Paris, and the government deployed troops to avoid a repetition of the riots in February of that year which had led to the sacking of the church ofSaint-Germain l'Auxerrois and the archbishop's palace. Grégoire's funeral was held at the church of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. Its clergy absented in obedience to the archbishop's orders, and Mass was sung by the Abbé Louis-Charles de Grieu (1755–1836), assisted by two clerics, thecatafalque being decorated with the episcopal insignia. The horses were unyoked from the hearse after it set out from the church, and it was pulled by students to the cemetery ofMontparnasse, the cortege being followed by a crowd of some 20,000 people.[citation needed]
On 12 December 1989, his ashes were transferred to thePanthéon, the resting place of French notables, in a ceremony at which PresidentFrançois Mitterrand presided. The apostolic nuncio to France, ArchbishopLorenzo Antonetti, and the outspoken BishopJacques Gaillot of Évreux attended. The Archbishop of Paris, CardinalJean-Marie Lustiger, offered a requiem Mass in Grégoire's memory the previous day.[14]
Besides several political pamphlets, Grégoire was the author of:
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Grégoire, Henri".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.;This in turn gives the following references:
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