Home > Étienne Pasquier

In 1558 he became very ill through eating poisonous mushrooms, and did not recover fully for two years. This compelled him to occupy himself by literary work, and in 1560 he published the first book of his Recherches de la France. In 1565, when he was thirty-seven, his fame was established by a great speech still extant, in which he pleaded the cause of the University of Paris against the Jesuits, and won it. Meanwhile he pursued the Recherches steadily, and published from time to time much miscellaneous work.

His literary and his legal occupations coincided in a curious fashion at the Grands Jours of Poitiers in 1579. These Grands Jours (an institution which fell into desuetude at the end of the 17th century, with bad effects on the social and political welfare of the French provinces) were a kind of irregular assize in which a commission of the parlement of Paris, selected and despatched at short notice by the king, had full power to hear and determine all causes, especially those in which seignorial rights had been abused. At the Grands Jours of Poitiers of the date mentioned, and at those of TroyesTroyes is a commune in northeastern France. It is the prefecture (capital) of the Aube departement and is located on the Seine river. Population (1999): 60,958. History There have been several councils held at Troyes. The 1420 Treaty of Troyes, which sett in 1583, Pasquier officiated; and each occasion has left a curious literary memorial of the jests with which he and his colleagues relieved their graver duties. The Poitiers work was the celebrated collection of poems on a flea (see SoutheyRobert Southey ( August 12, 1774 March 21, 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and one of the so-called "Lake Poets". Although his fame tends to be eclipsed by that of his contemporaries such as William Wordsworth, Southey's verse enjoys end's Doctor).

In 1585Events January 12 The Netherlands adopts the Gregorian calendar Beginning of the Eighth War of Religion in France (also known as the War of the Three Henrys) August 8 John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in quest for the North West Passage. August 17 Captur Pasquier was appointed by Henry IIIHenry III ( French Henri III Polish Henryk Walezy ( September 19 1551 August 2, 1589) was King of Poland and King of France from 1574 to 1589. Henri was born Edouard-Alexandre at the Royal Chateau of Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne, the son of King Henri II advocate-general at the Paris cours des comptes, an important body having political as well as financial and legal functions. Here he distinguished himself particularly by opposing, sometimes successfully, the mischievous system of selling hereditary places and offices, which more perhaps than any single thing was the curse of the older French monarchy. The civil wars compelled Pasquier to leave Paris and for some years he lived at Tours, working steadily at his great book, but he returned to Paris in Henry IVFrans Pourbus the younger. Henry IV ( December 13, 1553 May 14, 1610) was the first of the Bourbon kings of France, reigning from 1589 until 1610. As a Protestant he was involved in the Wars of Religion before acceding to the throne; as King he converted's train in March 1594. He continued until 1604Events January 14 Hampton Court conference with James I of England, the Anglican bishops and representatives of Puritans September 20 Capture of Ostend by Spanish forces under Ambrosio Spinola after a three year siege. November 1 At Whitehall Palace in Lo at his work in the chambre des comptes; then he retired. He survived this retirement more than ten years, producing much literary work, and died after a few hours' illness on the 1st of September 1615.

In so long and so laborious a life Pasquier's work was naturally considerable, and it has never been fully collected or indeed printed. The standard edition is that of Amsterdam (2 vols. fol., 1723). But for ordinary readers the selections of Leon Feugbre, published at Paris (2 vols. 8vo, 1849), with an elaborate introduction, are most accessible. As a poet Pasquier is chiefly interesting as a minor member of the PléiadeThe Pleiade was a group of 16th-century French poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baif. They were named after the original Pleiade, a group of seven Alexandrian poets (3rd century B. corresponding t movement. As a prose writer he is of much more account. The three chief divisions of his prose work are his Recherches, his letters and his professional speeches. The letters are of much biographical interest and historical importance, and the Recherches contain in a somewhat miscellaneous fashion invaluable information on a vast variety of subjects, literary, political, antiquarian and other.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.