Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/255

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GREER GREER, the N. W. county of Texas, as claimed by the state authorities, lying between the forks of Red river; area, 3,480 sq. m. ; still unsettled. There is considerable good land, but little timber. This region is claimed by the United States as being within the limits of the Indian territory. GREG, William Rathbone, an English author, born in 1812. He has published " Investments for Working Classes" (1852); "Essays on Po- litical and Social Science" (1854); "Creed of Christendom, its Foundations," &c. (1863); " Literary and Social Judgments " (1868) ; "Truth vs. Edification" (1869); "Why are Women Redundant? " (1869); "Political Prob- lems for our Age and Country " (1870) ; "The Great Duel, its True Meaning and Uses" (1871); and "Enigmas of Life" (1872). He has been a frequent contributor to the English periodicals. Several of his works have been reprinted in the United States. GREGARIM, the best known genus of the gregarinidce, a division of protozoa, with no mouth and without the power of sending out the delicate filaments of sarcode characteristic of the foraminifera. They are among the low- est of the protozoa, parasitic, varying in size from a pin's head to half an inch in length ; they infest the intestines of various animals, principally articulates, as the earth worm, lobster, beetle, and cockroach. They appear like a single cell, filled with a granular and fatty matter, with a nucleus and nucleolus ; the external covering may be smooth, bristly, or ciliated. They have no definite organs, and the processes of nutrition and waste must be effected by the general surface of the body, as is common with internal parasites. In repro- duction, the nucleus disappears, and the gran- ular sarcode breaks up into little masses, which afterward become pointed, forming the so-called navicellaB ; these escape from the ptured cyst, giving rise to active sarcode s, which have the property of throwing out processes, like the amoeba; these in a suitable locality become developed into gre- garinge. One of the largest, said to be, with the exception of the yolk of the eggs of birds and some other animals, the largest known cell, the G. gigantea, is found in the intestine of the lobster; it is nearly two thirds of an inch long, and almost as wide. GREGOIRE, Henri, a French revolutionist, born at Veho, near Luneville, Dec. 4, 1750, died in Paris, May 28, 1831. He commenced active life as a parish priest, and being nominated by the clergy of Lorraine in 1789 to represent them in the states general, he at once took ground as a republican, and was one of the first of the clergy to take the oath of fidelity to the constitution. He voted against primogeniture and special privileges, and zealously advocated the admission of Jews and men of color to full rights of citizenship. Under the new constitu- tion of the clergy the department of Loir-et- Cher in 1792 elected him bishop, on which he GREGOIRE 241 so-cai ruptui masse assumed, from the seat of the episcopate, the appellation of bishop of Blois. In the conven- tion he led the movement for the abolition of the regal office, and made a bitter speech against kings in general, ending by demanding that Louis Capet should be brought to trial. One maxim of his became a watchword of the revolution : Uhistoire des rois cst le martyro- loge des nations. His oration caused him to be made, the same day, president of the con- vention. He was absent with three other delegates on a mission to revolutionize Savoy when the king was brought to trial, but with his colleagues he wrote from Chambery to the convention, urging the condemnation of the king, though he afterward denied that he wished him to be condemned to death. Fur- ther, he says he endeavored to save the life of the king by proposing to abolish the death penalty. When Gobel, archbishop of Paris, assented to the worship of Reason, Gr6goire boldly refused to follow his example. He con- tributed zealously to preserve the monuments of art, and extended his protection to men of letters and artists. In 1800 he entered the legislative body, and having been transferred in 1801 to the senate, formed one of the mi- nority of five opposed to the accession of the first consul to the throne. He alone opposed the reestablishment of titles of nobility. Na- poleon unwillingly, on the request of both houses of the legislature, afterward made him a count of the empire and officer of the legion of honor. He was also opposed to the emperor's divorce, and declined to be present at the marriage with Maria Louisa. On Napoleon's reverses in 1814 Gr6goire pronounced a vehement oration against him. On the second restoration he was excluded from the institute, deprived of his bishopric, and compelled by the stoppage of his pension to sell his library for the means of support. He retired to Auteuil, where he passed the last 15 years of his life in literary labor. He never renounced his republican principles. The last offices of religion were denied him on his deathbed by his ecclesiastical superiors; but the civil power having inter- fered, funeral rites were performed over his body in the church of the Abbaye aux Bois by a proscribed priest. The people then took his remains in charge, and, removing the horses from the hearse, drew it to the cemetery of Mont Parnasse. Bernardin de 1'Oise describes Gregoire's character in saying that he wished to " Christianize the revolution." The most important of his numerous publications are his Histoire des sectes religieuses (2 vols., 1810); Essai Mstorique sur les libertes de VEglise gal- licane (1818); De ^influence du Christianisme sur la condition des femmes (1821); Histoire des confesseurs des empereurs, des rois et d'autres princes (1824) ; and Histoire du mariage despre- tres en France (1826). He also wrote a work entitled De la litterature des negres, containing sketches of the lives and writings of negroes " who have distinguished themselves in science,