Louis Marie Vicomte de Noailles

Background

Louis Marie Vicomte de Noailles was born on April 17, 1756 in Paris, France. He was the second son of Philippe, duc de Mouchy.

Career

Lack of an independent income prevented his departure with Lafayette; but as an officer in the French army Noailles later took part in d'Estaing's campaign in the West Indies, commanded a trench with credit in the siege of Savannah, and arrived at Newport with Rochambeau in 1780 as colonel en second of the regiment of Royal-Soissonais.

He returned to France and served both in the Assembly of Notables of 1787 and in the Estates-General of 1789. He is forever associated with one of the most radical steps taken by the National Assembly. On the night of August 4, 1789, Noailles in a brief and very effective speech proposed that the privileged orders take the first step toward the abolition of social and economic privilege by giving up freely their antiquated feudal status. This speech started an orgy of verbal altruism, and before the night was over the ancien régime was abolished, at least on paper. Noailles attempted to serve as an officer in the new army but could not completely repudiate his blood and his upbringing.

He left France in 1792, and his name was placed on the list of émigrés--a step which meant the confiscation of his property.

After a brief stay in England he went to Philadelphia in 1793, probably for economic reasons. His second stay in America is perhaps more interesting, save to military and diplomatic history, than his first, for he built up a moderate fortune for himself in the Philadelphia business world.

He became a partner in the banking house of Bingham & Company and seems to have speculated successfully on the stock exchange.

In 1800, Noailles's French possessions were restored to him, and his name was erased from the list of émigrés. He did not, however, return to France. But having gone to Santo Domingo on business, he accepted a commission under Rochambeau, son of his former commander. He held Mile St. Nicolas against a large force of blacks and a blockading British squadron for five months, and then ran the blockade, escaping with his men to a Cuban port. Proceeding with a few men toward Havana on the schooner Courrier, he met an English corvette of seven guns, the Hazard, fooled her commander by his knowledge of English, and got close enough to board and capture her in one of the most romantic struggles in French naval history.

Achievements

• As the real commander of regiment Noailles took a distinguished part in the Yorktown campaign and was chosen to represent the French army in negotiating the terms of surrender with Cornwallis. He promoted the Asylum Company, organized to buy and sell lands, especially in an attempt to provide a refuge for French émigrés. The colony was established in what is now Bradford County.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Le Cardinal De Noailles, Eveque De Chalons, Archeveque De Paris D'apres Sa Correspondance Inedite, 1651-1728 (French Edition)

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Views

His speeches, his letters to the Robinsons, and his activities in Philadelphia reveal a man of common sense, to whom the ideas of 1776 and of 1789 were neither a faith nor a goal, but something to be accepted, and used, like a fashion.

Personality

Noailles was clearly a man of great personal charm and social flexibility. He was a brave and capable officer, and a good man of business.

Living as he did in eighteenth-century France, he had the radical sympathies of the most active of his order. But there are no signs that he really thought out for himself the consequences of his devotion to liberty, novelty, and progress. He left his wife in France to be guillotined and never returned to see his sons. He was apparently somewhat vain, and shared with Lafayette a thirst for glory.

Connections

On September 19, 1773, at the age of seventeen, Noailles married his cousin, Louise de Noailles, a daughter of the Duc d'Ayen, whose sister later married Lafayette.

Father:

Philippe duc de Mouchy

Spouse:

Louise de Noailles

References

• When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation