![]() The ideals of the Revolution undoubtedly influenced Grégoire's views on diplomacy and relations between nations. Over time nations would "extend their fraternal hands." Progress would ensure that both would become rare. A new droit des gens would be a "beacon for the oppressed." For Grégoire the coupling of despotism, "a great error," and war, "a great immorality," was logical. For Grégoire the droit des gens consisted of 1) the law of nature, which was invariable, and 2) the droit publique, "an indecent and bizarre assemblage of both good and bad practices." In particular he derided the practice of precedence, which bedeviled relations and on many occasions led to hostilities. He noted that many jurists, such as Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, formulated "erroneous and immoral" statements. For him, the old diplomacy was no more than "a system of double dealing." Grégoire even resorted to quoting one of the often maligned theorists, Wicquefort, who argued that speaking openly guaranteed that a diplomat could baffle his opponent. Grégoire condemned the old diplomacy and the droit des gens as a "ridiculous," "often monstrous" scaffolding that the "breath of reason" has overturned. That conviction in turn was reinforced by his adherence to the universalism of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and was reinforced by his Christian commitment to fraternal love. ![]() Bell has argued, Grégoire "was hardly a typical parish priest-if anything he was the very model of the late-eighteenth century curé éclairé, with all the anxious determination of the species to treat Jesus as sort of philosophe avant la lettre." His belief in the equality of men of all races undergirded his advocacy for the emancipation of the Jews, his fight for the abolition of slavery, and his draft of international law. "The present is as they say pregnant with the future and will one day give birth to a general liberty," which will in turn "break its bonds, bring consolation to the human race and, enlarging its horizon, prepare for the federation of all people." As David A. a priest by choice." Christianity, he argued, "teaches me that all men are my brothers." As early as 1791 he saw himself fusing "the empire and religion," as "presenting Frenchmen with the gospel in one hand, and the constitution in the other." In an essay on the doctrine of Christianity, Grégoire contended that "ou are only one in Jesus Christ: you are all brothers." That theological belief reinforced his revolutionary ideology. In the equality that the Revolution proclaimed, they saw nothing other than the universal equality of men created in the image of God." In Dale Van Kley's words, they shared a "commitment to Catholicism with a dedication to the Revolution." Grégoire also refused to abjure his profession, arguing that he was a "Catholic by conviction and. ![]() Grégoire was one of the so-called "patriot priests" who, according to Rita Hermon-Belot, saw the Revolution as "the true fulfillment of Christianity. He was elected to the National Assembly from 1789–1791 and subsequently to the National Convention from 1792–1795, where he served on the diplomatic committee. Ībbé Henri-Baptiste Grégoire (1750–1831), a curé from a small village and a principled politician, shared the same ideology and relied on the same rhetoric. " Quel ordre, grand Dieu," Pétion cried, "that would subvert all morality and all justice." To Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave (1761–1793), the famous orator, the old order was a "false and perfidious system which dishonor nations" and only perpetuated reciprocal enmity. To Jerome Pétion, a lawyer, one-time mayor of Paris, and later member of the first Committee of Public Safety, the droit publique of the Old Regime rested only on force. That familiarity might have made him even more contemptuous. The irony, of course, was that Genet, like many revolutionaries, was a product of the Old Regime and had for many years worked for "a tyrant," Louis XVI, in the foreign office and was probably familiar with these jurists. all the known rules and customs established in the intercourse of nations." Such conduct prompted John Quincy Adams to remark with some asperity that Genet had "publicly damned. ![]() In 1793, when Thomas Jefferson questioned his conduct, citing various authorities on the laws of nations, Genet dismissed them as "diplomatic subtleties" and mere "aphorisms." He also claimed that he did not recall what Hugo Grotius, Emerich de Vattel, Samuel Pufendorf, and Abraham de Wicquefort, who had been "hired by Tyrants," had to say. neutrality: he equipped French privateers in American ports, issued French military commissions to American citizens, captured vessels within the jurisdiction of the United States, and tried to use American freebooters to invade Spanish Florida. Edmond Genet, the French minister to the United States, launched flagrant attacks on U.S.
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