Jean Nicot

Jean Nicot de Villemain (; 1530 – 4 May 1604) and who promoted their medicinal use. Smoking was believed to protect against illness, particularly the plague.

Career At 29 years 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. 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.

Although André Thevet argued that he had introduced tobacco to France, 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, Nicot described its believed medicinal properties (1559) and sent it as a medicine to the French court. The IETF language tags have registered for "16th century French as in Jean Nicot, 'Thresor de la langue francoyse', 1606, but also including some French similar to that of Rabelais".

Death He died on May 4, 1604, in Paris, France.