PASQUIER, ET.V.NNE, 1520-1615; b. in Paris, of an esteemed family; educated for the bar, under the ablest jurists of France and Italy, and at the age of 20 received as an advocate in Paris courts. In 1560 he ebrruueneed the publication of his most important work, entitled Mehe•ches de la France, and another, entitled Ponrparler do Prince. The former has ever since been a classic authority. In 1564 he distinguished himself at the bar by a defense of the university of France against the claims of the Jesuits to establish their authority within its circle; and by the lofty ground upon which he based the objec tion for the state itself rather than for the university, the masterly fullness of his arraignment of all the elements of dangerous political power that lay in the nature of their organization, his speeches became the first great arraignment of the order, then only 44 years from its origin. Immediately translated into all the continental languages. Pasquier's pleadings for a long time were the chief weapons of opposition to the grow ing power of that order. henry III. made him advocate-general in 1585, deputy to the states-general at Blois in 1588, and member of a parliament of magistrates in 1589. The
eight volumes of the Recherches, etc., above mentioned, treat, 1st, of the establishment of the French—the origin of the nation; 2d, of magistrates, parliaments, states-general;1 3d, of ecclesiastical affairs, the power of the popes, and the liberty of the Galilean church; 4th, of judgments, procedures, and customs; 5th, various historical questions; 6th, celebrated trials; 7th, of the origin of French poetry and of the language; 8th, of the French language, 9th, of French literature, the university, and its studies. Selec tions from his works, entitled Warms Cloisies, were published by M. FeuOre, Paris, 1840. The letters of Pasquier_published in 1586. and again in 1(i19 in 4 vols. quarto, originallyappeared in 22 vols. They form a picturesque panorama of the life and thought of the times in which he lived; sketches of history and law, of biography, of manners and customs, all given with a liveliness and warmth of style equal to the models of similar writings with which later French literature abounds.