Henri Gregoire

Henri Grégoire was a French Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent slavery abolitionist and supporter of universal suffrage. He was a founding member of the Bureau des longitudes, the Institut de France, and the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. He was born into a poor peasant family in Vého, near Lunéville, France, as the son of a tailor. He was educated at the Jesuit college at Nancy, where he became curé (parish priest) of Emberménil in 1782. He was elected in 1789 by the clergy of the bailliage of Nancy to the Estates-General, where he soon made his name as one of the group of clerical and lay deputies of Jansenist or Gallican sympathies who supported the Revolution. He was one of the first of the clergy to join the third estate, and thus contributed notably to the union of the three orders. He presided in the session that lasted sixty-two hours while the Bastille was being attacked, and spoke vehemently against the enemies of the nation. He later took a leading role in the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and the Church³. Under the new Civil Constitution of the Clergy, to which he was the first priest to take the oath (27 December 1790), Grégoire was elected bishop by two départements. He became one of the most influential members of the National Convention and voted for the death penalty for King Louis XVI. He also advocated for religious tolerance and civil rights for Jews and blacks. He wrote several reports and books on these topics, such as De la littérature des nègres (1808), Essai sur la régénération physique et morale des Juifs (1789), and Rapport sur la situation des colonies (1794)³. After the fall of Robespierre, he joined the moderate Thermidorian faction and opposed Napoleon's coup d'état in 1799. He remained loyal to the Constitutional church and refused to accept the Concordat of 1801 that restored the papal authority over the French church. He continued to serve as a bishop until his death in 1831. He was buried in his cathedral at Blois, but in 1989 his remains were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris as a national hero³.