His character and career were unique, being in France what Clarkson and Wilberforce were in England, and much more, for he was not only an Abolitionist. In all history no hero of humanity stands forth more conspicuous for instinctive sympathy with the Rights of Man and constancy in their support. As early as 1788 he signalized himself by an essay, crowned by the Academy of Metz, upholding tolerance for the Jews.[614] His public life began, while yet a curate, as a representative of the clergy of Lorraine in the States General, but his sympathies with the people were at once manifest. In the engraving by which the oath in the Tennis Court is commemorated he appears in the foreground. His votes were always for the enfranchisement of the people and the improvement of their condition, his hope being “to Christianize the Revolution.”[615] In the night session of 4th August, 1789, he declared for the abolition of privileges. He was the first to give adhesion to the civil constitution of the clergy, and himself became a constitutional bishop. The decree abolishing royalty was drawn by him, and he avows that for many days thereafter the excess of joy took from him appetite and sleep. In the discussion on the execution of the King he called for the suppression of the punishment of death. At his instance the Convention abolished African slavery. With similar energy he sustained public libraries, botanical gardens, and experimental farms. He was a founder of the Bureau of Longitudes, the _Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers_, and of the National Institute. More than any other person he contributed to prevent the destruction of public monuments, and was the first to call this crime “Vandalism,”--an excellent term, since adopted in all European languages. With similar vigor he said, in words often quoted, “Kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the physical order”; and, “The history of kings is the martyrology of nations.” He denounced “the oligarchs of all countries and all the crowned brigands who pressed down the people,” and, according to his own boast, “spat upon” duellists. “Better a loss to deplore than an injustice to reproach ourselves with,” was his lofty solace as he turned from the warning that the Colonies might be endangered by the rights he demanded. Such a man could not reconcile himself to the Empire or to Napoleon; nor could he expect consideration under the Restoration. But he was constant always to his original sentiments. In 1826 he wrote a work with the expressive title, “The Nobility of the Skin, or the Prejudice of Whites against the Color of Africans and that of their Black and Mixed Descendants.”[616] His life was prolonged to witness the Revolution of 1830, and shortly after his remains were borne to the cemetery of Mont Parnasse by young men, who took the horses from the hearse.[617] This brief account of one little known is an introduction to signal prophecies concerning America.