GREGORY, HENRI. – French constitutional bishop, b. Dec. 4, 1750 at Vého (Lorraine), d. May 26, 1831 at Paris. He studied theology at the Seminary of Metz and was ordained priest in 1775. Vicar of Merimont and curate at Emberménil, he was elected in 1789 deputy to the Estates General. Of the order of the clergy, he was among the first to join the Third Estate and on the night of Aug. 4, 1789 he became a fervent advocate of the abolition of ecclesiastical privileges and especially supported the suppression of annates.
Imbued with Gallican ideas, he was one of the most strenuous supporters of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, deluding himself that he could reconcile the Catholic religion with the extremism of the new ideas and was the first to take the required oath. Elected constitutional bishop in the departments of Sarthe and Loir-et-Cher, he opted for the see of Blois (1790). Too late did G. realize the error he had committed: only in the session of Nov. 17, Year II, when the bishop of Paris, Gobel, frightened by the threats of the revolutionaries, came to the rostrum to abjure his faith and lay down his episcopal insignia, did G. indignantly refuse to follow his example and in the name of freedom of worship proclaimed the right to remain faithful to the religion.
After the fall of Robespierre he spoke in favor of religious freedom and, although his words met with opposition in the Assembly, the Convention shortly thereafter approved a law guaranteeing the right to celebrate public worship. This positive aspect of G.’s conduct is, however, overshadowed by the continuous struggle he waged against the Holy See and against Catholics who remained faithful to the visible Head of the Church. He remained a resolute supporter of the Constitutional Church; he formed a Comité des évêques réunis; founded a special newspaper, the Annales de la religion; promoted the election of bishops according to the provisions of the law on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; extended that law to the French colonies in America and there established new dioceses with bishops appointed by him. After the Concordat of 1801 G. had to resign from the administration of the diocese of Blois. He left France together with the Jansenist Degola, his friend, and made a journey through England, Holland and Germany. Returning to his homeland, he was named life senator by Napoleon, but mindful of the Concordat, which had forever destroyed all his hopes of detaching the French Church from Rome, he systematically opposed imperial policy. After the Restoration he stood as a candidate for election to the Chamber in 1819 and succeeded in becoming deputy, but because of his past the election itself was annulled. At the point of death he refused to retract the oath he had taken to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and therefore received no religious burial. He wrote extensively: the Histoire des confesseurs, des empereurs, des rois et d'autres princes and the Histoire des sectes religieuses are found on the Index (decrees June 11, 1827 and Aug. 18, 1828).