Henri Grégoire

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Grégoire, Henri, abbé (1750-1831). Revolutionary reformer. He was born in Lorraine and began his career as a country priest. In his Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs (1788) he blamed the state of the Jews on the antisemitic legislation governing them and demanded its abrogation [see Judaism]. Elected deputy of the clergy to the États Généraux, he was among the first to join the deputies of the Third Estate, and played a major legislative role throughout the Revolution, speaking and writing extensively in favour of the rights of Jews, blacks, and those of mixed blood (especially in Haiti). He proposed projects for education reform, for the elimination of patois and the universalization of the use of French (which he considered essential to effective democracy), for the enrichment and development of the Bibliothèque Nationale, and was extremely active in attempting to preserve historical monuments from revolutionary vandalism. Grégoire is pre-eminently representative of the Revolutionary effort to realize the hopes of the Enlightenment.

Named bishop of Blois in the Constitutional Church, he was a major force in organizing and maintaining that institution whilst showing charity towards the non-juror priests [see Constitution Civile]. Of great personal courage, he refused to renounce his episcopal functions during the Terror, bravely pleading for religious tolerance, and after the Concordat refused to deny the validity of his episcopate or of the experiment of the Constitutional Church. He encountered Napoleon's wrath because he refused as senator to approve of the divorce with Josephine; he roundly condemned the emperor also for his reinstitution of slavery.

Grégoire suffered much persecution under the Restoration; elected député in 1819, he was accused of having been a regicide and not seated. His Histoire des sectes religieuses (1814, 2nd edn. 1828-45) reflects his Gallican and Jansenist convictions, but also his concern with ecumenicity. De la littérature des noirs ou Recherches sur leurs facultés intellectuelles (1808) proposed that, as with the Jews, the state of the blacks stemmed from social and cultural conditions (especially slavery) and that they had made and could make great contributions in science, letters, music, religion, and politics.

[Frank Paul Bowman]

Grégoire, Henri (äNrē' grāgwär') , 1750–1831, French priest, writer, and revolutionist. A Jansenist (see under Jansen, Cornelis), he was prominent in the States-General of 1789 and supported the union of the lower clergy with the third estate. He fought clerical and noble privilege and proposed abolition of the law of primogeniture. Grégoire took the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (even though it was condemned by the pope) and became constitutional bishop of Blois in 1791. He maintained his religious beliefs throughout the Terror and fought for religious freedom under the Directory. As a senator under the Consulate, he opposed the Concordat of 1801 and, resigning his see, became a simple priest. Although he opposed the empire, Napoleon I made him a count. In 1819 he was elected to the chamber of deputies but, as a radical and a dissident priest, was refused his seat. Grégoire died in poverty; his burial was the scene of a great liberal demonstration. His writings, some of which have been translated, deal chiefly with Jansenism, racial equality, and international cooperation.