Stanislas Julien

Stanislas Aignan Julien (13 April 179714 February 1873) was a French sinologist who served as the Chair of Chinese at the Collège de France for over 40 years and was one of the most academically respected sinologists in French scholarship.

Julien was a student of Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, and succeeded him as the chair of Chinese at the Collège de France upon Rémusat's death in 1832. The quantity and quality of Julien's scholarship earned him wide renown, and caused him to become the leading European scholar of China during the 19th century. Along with Sebastien Couvreur and among 19th-century scholars of China, Julien's academic reputation was rivaled only by the Scottish sinologist James Legge, and no sinologist equaled his academic reputation until Édouard Chavannes at the turn of the 20th century.

Notwithstanding his academic rigor and gifted intellect, Julien had a notoriously thorny personality and publicly feuded with most of his contemporaries, earning broad academic respect but equally broad personal dislike from those who knew him. Provided by Wikipedia