Portalis, Jean Étienne Marie

Portalis, Jean Étienne Marie

(zhäN ātyĕn` märē` pôrtälēs`), 1746–1807, French statesman and lawyer. A moderate, he was suspected of royalist sympathies during the French Revolution but was made a councilor of state and director of ecclesiastic affairs by Napoleon Bonaparte (later French Emperor Napoleon I). Portalis had an important part in making the Concordat of 1801 and in drawing up the Code Napoléon.