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Untitled Article
in the presence of the consuls , did not greatly please the new court ; hb religious principles , followed with exactness , were not a less scandal in the eyes of many ; they endeavoured even to obtain from him the renunciation of these practices , which seemed incompatible with senatorial dignity but he flung from him the proposed capitulation with his conscience . At last his long-delayed election took place in 1801 .
The minority of the Senate , who never ceased protesting against the mean compliances of this politic Assembly , was composed of three or four members , of whom Gr £ goire was one . He opposed the Concordat , and presented several memorials on the occasion ; he voted , with two of his colleagues , against the establishment of the Imperial Government , and combated alone
the re-establishment of titles of nobility ; he shewed his opposition to the divorce of the Emperor ; and was one of the first , in 1814 , to announce his fall . He was not comprised in the Chamber of Peers formed by the Bourbons , ( whom he had reminded , in an energetic writing , that they only ascended the throne on condition that they should establish a constitutional compact , ) nor on the restoration of Napoleon in that of the hundred days .
Neglected by the empire , Gregoire was persecuted by the restoration . In 1819 , the department of the I sere chose him for its representative to the Chamber . His election , awakening all the counter-revolutionary hatreds , dismayed the more timid portion of the liberals . They made strong remonstrances to him to induce him to resign , which his septuagenarian steadiness resisted . The politicians of the Assembly found themselves much embarrassed , divided as they were between their desire of opposition , and the fear of passing the limits of parliamentary usage , in constituting themselves the
defenders of a man convicted of Republicanism : a sudden light broke in upon them ; with a good will there were means to annul the election ; they availed themselves of this just expedient , leaving a respectable old man under the weight of an aftront , which , fortunately , public opinion caused to rebound in the face of its authors . At this period calumny renewed and redoubled its attacks in the journals under the influence of government . The old Bishop of Blois complained of it to M . de Richelieu : " I am like granite ; they may break , but they cannot bend me . *'
In 1822 , another opportunity presented itself to M . Gregoire to display the same character of dignity . The Chancellor of the Legion of Honor having communicated to him the ordonnance of the 26 th March , 1816 , for replacing the ancient brevets with new ones , M . Gregoire answered by renouncing the title of principal of this order . Some expressions in his letter deserve to be quoted ; <* Inaccessible to ambition , arrived on the confines of eternity , I am occupied solely now , as
throughout my life , with what may enlighten my mind , improve my heart , and contribute to the happiness of mankind , although the services that one renders to them are in this world rarely unpunished . Repulsed from the legislative seat , repulsed from the institute , to these two conclusions it will be permitted , without doubt , th ^ t I may add a third , and that I may inclose myself in a circle of qualities that can neither be conferred by commission , nor withdrawn by ordonnance ; qualities only admitted in two tribunals which will revise many of our contemporary judgments—the tribunal of history and that of the eternal Judge . "
During his last fifteen years , the old Bishop of Blois lived in a studious retreat , supporting with the learned of all countries a vast correspondence which realized in some degree the project of an intellectual association that he had formerly proposed to the Convention . Men of letters , the learned of
Untitled Article
Memoir of Bishop Grtgoire . 47 $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1831, page 475, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2599/page/43/
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