Abstract

In 1989 at the height of the Bicentenary celebrations the Abbé Henri Grégoire, one of the leading figure of the French Revolution, received the symbolic acknowledgement of the transfer of his remains to the Pantheon. During all his long public life, started in the days of the meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789 and ended at the beginning of the July Monarchy, Grégoire claimed an attitude of personal consistency and political integrity. The article focuses on the legitimacy of such claim in the perspective of some crucial moments of the revolutionary epoch and paying a particular attention to the role of Grégoire at the moment of the Girondin crisis at the National Convention, in May-June 1793.