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Untitled Article
sVdering that tbe rapid circulation of l ^ nowledge is one of the means to oh- * t ^ in this end , decrees , '' &c ., &c . Tbe labours of Gregoire in ; the committee of public instruction were many &nd important . We may refer with advantage to the reports which he made to the Convention in the name of this committee , on the digest of the " Annales du Civisme ; on the necessity of reforming the moral instruction ;
on the assistance and rewards due to savants , artists , & ; c , for whom he obtained an annual grant of a hundred thousand crowns , raised afterwards to eight hundred thousand francs ; on the utility of encouraging scientific expeditions ; on the inscriptions for public monuments , which the Assembly , upon his proposition , ordered to be henceforth composed in the French language ; on the means of extirpating the provincial dialects ( patois ) ; on the
creation of the School of Arts and Trades ; on that of the Board of Longitude : he contributed greatly to the founding of these two establishments , as well as to that of the National Institute , from which he was excluded twenty years after , by the Vaublanc administration ; an exclusion maintained since the restoration of July . In a word , Gregoire obtained from the Convention the reward of his generous efforts , already crowned with partial success by the constituent assembly—colonial slavery was completely abolished .
- One of the most respectable acts of his life was the courageous perseverance with which he publicly defended his religious opinions , in defiance of the abuse and menaces heaped upon him by the partisans of Herbert and of Chaumette . The commune of Paris , wishing to substitute / or the established worships that of reason * and the bishop of the metropolis , Gobei , having had the weakness to apostatise from his faith , they summoned the Bishop of Blojs ia full assembly to imitate this example . "A Catholic by conviction and by feeling , " replied Gregoire , " a priest by choice , I have been appointed bishop
by the people ; but it is neither from them nor from you that I hold my mission . I have consented to carry the load of episcopacy when it was surrounded with thorns . They tormented me to accept it 5 and now they torment me to obtain an abdication which they shall never drag from me . Acting upon those sacred principles which are so dear to me , and which I defy you to tear from me , I have studied the good of jny diocese . I remain bishop to do so again , I demand freedom of worship . " And the grandeur of virtue triumphed in his person over the violence of the most fiery demagogues ; it should also have closed the mouths of calumniators of another
class . An advocate for humanity , even in favour of his adversaries , Gregoire demanded and obtained the liberation of the refractory priests who were c / owded together on the floating bridges at Rochefort . After their deliverance , these priests published an account of their recent deliverance from
captivity , without one word pf gratitude to him who had broken M their chains . It was Gregoire also , ^ s he relies in one of his last letters to , de Qu £ len , who , after the revolution , first demanded tb ^ t tjje Christian temples should he opened j yet Christian prie&te have assailed his latest hours with threats , and have shut against him the crates of these temples . JHid have shut against him the gates of these temples .
These men havq deeply imprintecj on their foreheads the seal of hatred and ingratitude . Let us Qg&in retrace the character of the virtuous man * Gr ^ goire way called to the council of five hundred and into the legislative body after the 1 $ Drumfire ( & Npv . ) . At three different times this Assembly presented him as a candidate to the Conservative Senate ; but his republican opinions , wbich he continued to profess loudly , even in his public address
Untitled Article
4 # 4 Memoir of Bfrhop Gregoire *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1831, page 474, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2599/page/42/
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