Background
He was born at Toulouse to an old family of the magistracy.
He was born at Toulouse to an old family of the magistracy.
He studied law there with Jacques Cujas, and afterwards at Padua.
In 1548 he was admitted to the bar at Toulouse, at once took high rank, and rose to be juge-mage, an office in Languedocian cities about equal to that of privat. He was selected in 1562 as one of the three representatives of the king of France at the Council of Trent. In 1565 he became general advocate to the parlement of Paris, and extended the renaissance in jurisprudence which was transforming French justice.
Then he was employed in negotiations with the so-called politiques, and he managed to keep them quiet for a while.
In 1578 he became the chancellor of Marguerite of France, queen of Navarre.
Pibrac"s fluent Latin won much applause from the Poles, but his second visit to Poland in 1575, when sent back by Henry III to try to save the Crown he had deserted, was not so successful. Although he was fifty, her beauty and intellectual gifts led him to aspire to win her affection. But he was rejected with disdain.
