Background
Gilles-Augustin Payen de Noyan was born in 1697 in France. He was the second son of Pierre Payen de Noyan, a naval officer, and Catherine Jeanne Le Moyne, sister of Bienville and Iberville.
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Gilles-Augustin Payen de Noyan
Edit ProfileEducation
It is probable that Noyan received some sort of military training under his father and uncles.
Career
Noyan came to Louisiana in 1717 or 1718, with the rank of lieutenant, and saw his first important service in 1719, when Bienville sent him, with a troop of Indians, to relieve Chateaugué in the recently captured Pensacola. Noyan arrived just after the Spanish had retaken the fort; presumably he took part in the second seizure by the French a month later. He next served for a year in command at New Orleans, and was given charge of a company of infantry. When Bienville was removed from office and recalled to France, Noyan appeared before the Superior Council to defend him, and in 1726 with his younger brother was dismissed from service and possibly recalled to France. If so, he soon returned, and through the years of Bienville's absence acted as his uncle's agent, showing much activity in disposing of his lands. Upon Bienville's reappointment to his old post in 1732, he showed his appreciation of his nephew's service by obtaining for him the position of adjutant at Mobile, and a year later transferred him to a similar post at New Orleans. Bienville's great task for the next years was to stiffen the Choctaws' resistance to their old enemies, the Chickasaws, and the English behind them. Noyan was entrusted with diplomatic missions to the Choctaw chiefs, and on occasion took command in war raids. He was severely wounded in the campaign of 1736, but recovered to carry on his activities.
Three years later he was sent up the Mississippi to find suitable headquarters and explore the country preparatory to an attack upon the Chickasaws by the combined French and Indian forces from Louisiana and Illinois. After months of inactivity at Fort Assomption on the Chickasaw Bluffs, ascribed to heavy rains and lack of pack animals, the expedition returned with nothing achieved, and Noyan, who had spent much for the campaign to his own impoverishment, was blamed for the selection of an impossible route.
Achievements
Connections
On May 1, 1735 Noyan married Jeanne Faucon Dumanoir, daughter of the agent for the Company of the Indies, and widow of Jean Baptiste Massy. His eldest son, Jean Baptiste Noyan, was executed in 1769, with his father-in-law, Nicholas Lafrénière, for protests against the Spanish régime.
