Jean Nicot

Jean Nicot
Born	Jean Nicot 1530 Nîmes, France
Died	May 4, 1600 Paris, France

Jean Nicot (1530–1600) was a French diplomat and scholar.

Jean Nicot was born in 1530 in Nîmes, in the south of France. His father was a notary. He was educated in Toulouse and Paris.

Nicot served as the French ambassador in Lisbon, Portugal from 1559 to 1561, under King Henry II. As a 29-year-old in 1559, he was sent from France to Portugal to negotiate the marriage of six-year-old princess Margaret of Valois to five-year-old King Sebastian of Portugal.

When Nicot returned, he brought tobacco plants. He introduced snuff tobacco to the French royal court. In particular, he presented the queen mother, Catherine de' Medici, with tobacco leaves to cure her of her migraines. The plant was also an instant success with the Father Superior of Malta, who shared tobacco with all of his monks. More and more of the fashionable people of Paris began to use the plant, making Nicot a celebrity.

At first, the plant was called Nicotina. But nicotine later came to refer specifically to the particular chemical in the plant. The tobacco plant, Nicotiana, also a flowering garden plant, was named after him by Carl Linnaeus, as was nicotine. Nicot described its believed medicinal properties (1559) and sent it as a medicine to the French court.

For his service to the French royal court, Nicot was given the name 'de Villemain' and land near Brie-Comte-Robert. There, he compiled one of the first French dictionaries Thresor de la langue françoyse tant ancienne que moderne (published in 1606).

He died on May 4, 1600 in Paris, France.

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