Henri Grégoire was a Roman Catholic priest and a revolutionary leader. He was born in Lunéville, France, in 1750 as the son of a tailor. He is often referred to as Abbé Grégoire and was the constitutional bishop of Blois.

Henri Grégoire received an education from the Jesuit College at Nancy and became a curé (priest) at an age of 32. The year after, he was crowned by the Academy of Nancy for his Eloge de la poésie.

Henri Grégoire belonged to a group of clerical and lay deputies with Jansenist of Gallican sympathies that supported the French Revolution. He was actually one of the first of the clergy to join the third estate and he played an important role in unifying the three orders. After the attack on the Bastille, Henri Grégoire worked to abolish the privileges of the nobles and of the Church.

In 1789, Henri Grégoire met Julien Raimond and became interested in abolitionism. He published both pamphlets and books on the subject and joined the “Society of the Friends of the Blacks”.

According to Henri Grégoire himself, he stayed a devout Roman Catholic throughout his life. He died in 1831 and his funeral was held at the church of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. The hearse was then dragged by students to the cemetery of Montparnasse, followed by a crowd of roughly 20,000 people.