Pasquier, Étienne

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Étienne Pasquier (ātyĕn´ päkyā´), 1529–1615, French jurist and man of letters. After study under Jacques Cujas, Pasquier began his legal career in 1549. Always a confirmed advocate of Gallicanism, in 1565 he pleaded a famous case for the Univ. of Paris against the Jesuits. In 1585 he became advocate general of a division of the Parlement of Paris. Pasquier's most notable book, Recherches de la France, a learned work on French history and literature, reflected the tendency of the humanists to write in the vernacular rather than in Latin.

See biography by L. C. Keating (1972).