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root in France . The candour of these faithful labourers was not less conspicuous than their zeaL Among the books which they circulated , as one means of attaining jtheir noble object , was Dr . Watson ' s Apology for the Bible .
When the hopes of all good Frenchmen were disappointed in the failure of every endeavour to make their country free , and Napoleon had revived all the bad qualities except the legitimacy' of the old monarchical despotism , M . Gr £ goire , with some others , received from the Emperor those tokens
of his unwilling homage to virtue which were amongst the politic acts of his reign . He gave seats in the Senate to a few of the most independent men , whose characters had passed through
the fiery furnace of the Revolution , and thus by the discussion which their opposition to his views occasioned , gave an appearance of freedom to the votes of this Chamber , which the
overwhelming majority of his creatures entirely destroyed . The energetic resistance of this handful of patriots did , however , on some occasions , succeed in opposing the Imperial wishes . M .
Gr ^ goire used all his influence to effect the deposition of Buonaparte in 1814 , and on his resuming the throne in 1815 , was a resolute opponent of his ambitious schemes . The reward for
his unvaried consistency and ardour m the holy cause of liberty has been given , it is true , in the applause of every good citizen of every country , and to his mind the approbation of the wise and good must be the most gratifying return for his unwearied labours
of well-doing 3 but he has only experienced ingratitude from those whom he has most served , and it is melancholy to think , that some of his most malignant calumniators owe their very existence to his exertions during the horrors of the Revolution .
Before we mention the particular jact of his life , which has been the baseless foundation of the false accu * £ atipn jagainst him , we will enumerate the principal plans of which he was the author or great promoter during the author or great promoter during
the progress of his country ' s troubles . With no ambition to gratify , but that of tendering his honest services for the good of France , and while bier more aspiring- statesmen , in their mighty schemes of conquest , neglected every department of policy which had nothing
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beyond public utility for its recommendation , M . Gr 6 goire was engaged in forming establishments which will remain the monuments of his exertions as a citizen , when even the evils of the revolutionary wars shall have vanished . The French Board of Longitude and the Museum of Arts and Inventions
were instituted . at his suggestion ; and on his re ' port on the subject of Vandalism , and his eloquent plea on behalf of science and literature , he procured a grant of one hundred thousand crowns from the unlettered demagogues of the Revolution , for the encouragement of
learning . He was a diligent member of the Agricultural Society of Paris , and gave the world a valuable report of their proceedings . He was one of the original founders of the Institute , a society which , from its birth , has held $ high rank among the learned
bodies of Europe : but from this society his name was struck out ( as if men could be made learned by royal patent , or pronounced ignorant by a proclamation of kingly displeasure ) by an arbitrary act of the present monarch in 1816—an act as illegal
as absurd , but quite characteristic . Above all , his great talents and influence have been unceasingly employed in the most efficient plan of universal improvement in which human philanthropy can be exerted , namely , the extension of popular education . His
penetrating eye saw that general knowledge would be infallibly accompanied by the spread of those liberal principles which he had so long and so well advocated , but which an ignorant people is unprepared to receive . The effects of this system , though so lately establiahed , are at this moment felt in the
remotest corners of Europe , and m them , and through them , Europe will find salvation . We have given but a slight sketch of the works of this good man ; but we would now ask , Can the least siga of a wish to gratify any but the most virtuous ambition be traced in the
above list of his claims for universal popularity ? Yet this is the character that it is now required of every loyal Frenchman to hate , and which to revile is deemed an undoubted proof of peculiar public virtue .
The alleged crime which has been the watch-word of attack is this—that he is & regicide—thetf lie voted for tb §
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36 Review . — -Life and Character of Abbi Grkgoire *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1821, page 36, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2496/page/36/
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