ABBÉ HENRI GRÉGOIRE: CLERIC AND REVOLUTIONARY DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION WHO FOUGHT FOR CIVIC FREEDOMS

Virtually unknown in the US, L'Abbée Henri Grégoire (1750-1831) was a freedom hero, having played a prominent role in the French Revolution, because of which his remains lie in the Panthéon of the Great heroes of the French Republic (since 1989, via the French Revolution's bicentenary, under the aegis of Culture Minister Jack Lang). He has the rank of a Ben Franklin, of a Thomas Paine or a Paul Revere. Defender of both tradition and innovation, this catholic man of the late-Enlightenment years, was a devoted French priest and humanitarian who was instrumental in emancipating French minorites, including but not limited to French Black African and French Jews from discrimination. And humiliation. By the power of his "plume" and his talk, he was able to convince the French Legislature of the day to implement many important human rights and dutie, i.e., ceasing to be treated equal for taxation and treated like foreigners for the rest. Emancipation (individual rights) was granted, first to Sephardic Jews in January 1790 and then to Ashkenazy Jews in September 1791. Later on, Blacks and women were also better treated in terms of civic freedoms.

BELOW, A BOOK REVIEW ON ABBÉ HENRI GRÉGOIRE

The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism

by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
Pp. xi+341. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005
Hardback, £35.95

The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution is a thoughtful and instructive work that touches on many subjects including the complexities of modernity. The Abbé Grégoire (1750-1831) is presented as a key figure in late-Enlightenment thought and specifically in the development of enlightened religion, while the nature of the French Revolution is considered. Grégoire was certainly a player in the major drama of the latter. Depicted at the forefront of David's painting The Tennis Court Oath, Grégoire also presided over the Assembly during the storming of the Bastille and took a prominent role in pressing for the nationalization of the Catholic Church.
His scope was not restricted to ecclesiastical matters. Indeed Grégoire was the deputy who introduced the resolution abolishing the monarchy. Nor did the guillotine bring an abrupt close to his career. Instead, Grégoire was a new-found moderate in the late 1790s, before playing a prominent role in the opposition in the Napoleonic Senate.
Aside from assessing Grégoire's career, Sepinwall, Assistant Professor of History at California State University, San Marcos, uses him to assess first the intellectual origins of the French Revolution, specifically the relationship of Enlightenment to Christianity, secondly the Revolution's idea of universalism, and thirdly the contradictory legacy of the Revolution, specifically the extent to which its ideals could lead to oppression in the cause of regeneration.
This lasting legacy led the Germans to destroy his statue at Lunéville in 1942, while Le Pens Front National has also attacked his legacy, offering a reminder of the continuing resonance of the past.
In specific terms, Grégoire's attempts on behalf of Jews and against slavery made him a controversial figure. Concerned about the inhuman conditions of the slave trade and slavery, Grégoire by late 1789 decided that the colonies needed regeneration as urgently as the metropole, and he pressed his colleagues to apply the Declaration's universal language to all areas of the empire. Instituting racial equality, he argued, would be one of the key components in revitalising the colonies. Grégoire believed in integration, not separate development. As with the Jews, Grégoire suggested that a key means for the full regeneration of nonwhites would be through interracial marriage.
Other causes he supported included New World republicanism and the rights of Irish Catholics, but, in response to disenchantment with the Revolution, his faith in secular regeneration and in enlightened religion faded, and he came to argue that salvation could only come from the Church. In light of the latter, Grégoire came to argue that the groups he considered needed to adopt Catholicism and that a purified Catholicism was the answer to the world's problems.

Jeremy Black is Professor of History, University of Exeter. Amongst much else, he is the author of The European Question and the National Interest (Social Affairs Unit, forthcoming).

ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND GREGOIRE

The French Revolution of 1789 changed the meaning of the word “revolution.” Prior to
this year, revolution meant restoring a previous form of government that had been taken away.
Since then, the notion "revolution" has meant creating a new institution of government that did not previously exist. This required that a constitution be drafted. After a series of four mini- revolutions from May to July, the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen” was released on the twenty-sixth of August, 1789. When the French revolutionaries drew up the Declaration, they wanted to end the traditions surrounding hereditary monarchy and establish new institutions based on the principles of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment brought the application of scientific laws and formulas to society through the use of observation and reason rather than religion or tradition. The Declaration “brought together two streams of thought: one springing from the Anglo-American tradition of legal and constitutional guarantees of individual liberties, the other from the Enlightenment's belief that reason should guide all human affairs. Reason rather than tradition would be its justification.”“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” began the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen,” a document that was supposed to be applicable to all Frenchmen. But did the Declaration really apply to the Jews, Black African slaves, and women in the same respect as it applied to it s creators, and was it even intended to do so? It is in this context that Abbé Henri Gregoire served minorities dignity and universal rights, fought for abolitionism and the enlightenment, the legacy of which is anchored in fundamental freedoms.

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