People · French consul-general (acting), sinologist
Arnold Jaques Vissière
微席叶Wēixíyè · 1858–1930
French diplomat and sinologist who came to China as interpreter in 1882, was acting consul-general at Shanghai in 1892 and later taught Chinese in Paris.
Arnold Jaques Vissière (微席叶, Wēixíyè) was a French diplomat and sinologist who held the Shanghai consul-generalship briefly in 1892.
He reached China in 1882 as a student interpreter, and was used by the Brazilian envoy who came to exchange a treaty with China. The exchange took place in Shanghai, at the Zhejiang sea-transport bureau, with the Jiangsu provincial official Tan Junpei. He then served as chief Chinese secretary at the French legation in Beijing.
From 15 June 1892 he was acting consul-general in Shanghai. Because his Chinese was good, he wrote and translated the official correspondence himself. He soon went back to France, where he became chief Chinese translator at the foreign ministry and taught at the School of Modern Oriental Languages in Paris. Many later French interpreters sent to China studied under him. He later worked for the Banque Industrielle de Chine. He died in 1930.