Regenerating France, regenerating the world: The abbe Gregoire and the French Revolution, 1750-1831

The abbe Henri Gregoire--priest, revolutionary, abolitionist, and scholar--has been creating controversy around the world for over two hundred years. This dissertation examines Gregoire--and debates about him--as a way of shedding light on the origins of the French Revolution, its course and radicalization, and its global legacy. It focuses on his vision for "regenerating" (remaking or improving) oppressed groups and the ways in which members of these groups responded to Gregoire's plans.;The first section investigates the origins of Gregoire's notion of regeneration in order to trace some of the intellectual inspirations of the Revolution. It looks at the multiplicity of Gregoire's prerevolutionary intellectual affinities, focusing particularly on the nexus between Enlightenment and religion and on Gregoire's efforts to remake peasants and the Church. It also looks at the paradoxes of Gregoire's call for "regenerating" Jews; he simultaneously defended and criticized them.;The next section examines Gregoire's participation in the French Revolution. Though the Revolution and Christianity are generally considered opposing forces, Gregoire reminds us that they could initially be seen as perfectly compatible. This section also illustrates the contradictions of revolutionary universalism (especially in regard to slaves, Jews, women, and dialect-speakers) and traces the transformation of "regeneration" from a discourse of unity to one of division. Finally, it considers Gregoire's efforts to create a sort of "cultural revolution.";The final section examines the legacy of republicanism in the wake of the Terror, and the links between the Revolution and colonialism. It begins by analyzing the efforts of Gregoire and various colleagues to preserve republicanism through a new social science, a reconstructed Church, and a reconceived empire. This section also complicates Gregoire's reputation as a "liberator" of the oppressed, by focusing on his relationship with Haitian leaders in the early nineteenth century and on his writings on "reviled" peoples from the Americas to India. It concludes that Gregoire's universalism was more complicated than it appeared. His discussions of marginalized peoples gave them tools for empowering themselves, but also suggested that they needed to abandon their cultural particularities--and to become Catholic--in order to be regenerated.