Pâquet was born an only child in 1850 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, in what was then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Quebec City, in Canada East.

On October 29, 1879, a series of political crises lead Liberal MLA Edmund James Flynn to propose an amendment demanding a coalition government.

Pâquet and three other Liberals (Alexandre Chauveau, Louis Napoléon Fortin and Ernest Racicot) crossed the floor alongside Flynn to join the conservatives, causing the government to fall.

Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille, however, declined to dissolve the legislature, instead prompting opposition leader Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau to form a new government, in which Pâquet was Provincial Secretary until July 1882.

[1] He was deeply involved in the establishment of the Crédit Foncier Franco-Canadien, a major credit union; in May of the next year both he and Jonathan Saxton Campbell Würtele were accused by David-Alexandre Ross of having been offered money in the deal.

[2] Pâquet left provincial politics in 1883 following a severe injury suffered while inspecting forest cuts with federal MP Joseph Bolduc, and was subsequently named sheriff of Quebec County, a post he kept until 1890.