1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pellicier, Guillaume

PELLICIER, GUILLAUME (c. 1490–1568), French prelate and diplomatist, was educated by his uncle, the bishop of Maguelonne, whom he succeeded in 1529. In 1536 he had the seat of his bishopric transferred to Montpellier. Appointed ambassador at Venice in 1539, he fulfilled his mission to the entire satisfaction of Francis I., but on the discovery of the system of espionage he had employed the king had to recall him in 1542. Returning to his diocese, he was imprisoned in the château of Beaucaire for his tolerance of the Reformers, so he replaced his former indulgence by severity, and the end of his episcopate was disturbed by religious struggles. He was a man of wide learning, a humanist and a friend of humanists, and took a keen interest in the natural sciences.

See J. Zeller, La Diplomatie française . . . d’après le correspondance de G. Pellicier (Paris, 1881), and A. Tausserat-Radel, Correspondance politique de Guillaume Pellicier (Paris, 1899).