Noailles, Louis Antoine De
Noailles, Louis-Antoine de
Cardinal and bishop, b. at the Château of Teyssiére in Auvergne, France, 27 May, 1651; d. at Paris, 4 May, 1729. His father, first Duc de Noailles, was captain- general of Roussillon; his mother, Louise Boyer, had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne of Austria. Louis de Noailles studied theology at Paris in the Collège du Plessis, where Fénelon was his fellow-student and friend, and obtained his doctorate at the Sorbonne, 14 March, 1676. Already provided with the Abbey of Aubrac (Diocese of Rodez), he was, in March, 1679, appointed to the Bishopric of Cahors, and in 1680 transferred to Châlons-sur-Marne, to which see a peerage was attached. He accepted this rapid removal only at the formal command of Innocent XI. In this office he showed himself a true bishop, occupying himself in all kinds of good works. He confided his theological seminary to the Lazarists, and founded a petit séminaire.
The regularity of his conduct, his family standing, and the support of Mme de Maintenon induced Louis XIV to make him Archbishop of Paris, 19 August, 1695. At Paris he was what he had been at Châlons. Lacking in brilliant qualities, he was possessed of piety, zeal, and activity. He was simple in manners and accessible to poor and rich alike. In 1709 he sold his silver plate to provide food for the famine-stricken. His generosity towards churches was also remarkable, and he spent large sums from his private fortune in decorating and improving Notre-Dame. The decorum of public worship and the good conduct of the clergy were the particular objects of his care. Inspired more by customs prevalent in France than by the prescriptions of the Council of Trent, he caused the Breviary, Missal, and other liturgical books of Paris already published by his predecessor de Harlay, to be reprinted. To these he added the Rituale, the Ceremoniale, and a collection of canons for the use of his Church. By decrees issued on his accession (June, 1696) he imposed for the first time on aspirants to the ecclesiastical state the obligation of residing in seminaries for several months before ordination. He organized ecclesiastical conferences throughout his diocese and conferences in moral theology once a week at Paris; priests were obliged to make an annual retreat, wise rules were drawn up for the good conduct and regularity of all ecclesiastics, the Divine service, the assistance of the sick, and the primary schools. Seminaries for poor clerics were encouraged and supported, and one was founded which served as a shelter for poor, old, or infirm priests.
While still Bishop of Châlons he took part in the conferences held at Issy to examine the works of Mme Guyon. His part was only secondary, but he succeeded in having the accused’s entire defence heard. Shortly afterwards he became involved in a controversy with Fénelon concerning the latter’s “Maximes des Saints,” which was condemned by the Bishops of Meaux, Chartres, and de Noailles himself. In 1700 he was made a cardinal by Innocent XII. Several months later de Noailles presided at the General Assembly of the French clergy. This assembly exterted great influence on the teaching of moral theology in France, and after Bossuet no one had so great a share as de Noailles in its decisions. He became prior of Navarre in 1704, head of the Sorbonne in 1710, and honorary dean of the faculty of law. Except for his attitude towards Jansenism the cardinal’s career would be deserving only of praise. He always denied being a Jansenist, and condemned the five propositions constituting the essence of Jansenism, but he always inclined, both in dogma and morals, to opinions savouring of Jansenism; he favoured its partisans and was ever hostile to the Jesuits and the adversaries of the Jansenists. Shortly before his elevation to the See of Paris he had approved (June 1695) the “Réflexions morales” of Père Quesnel, an Oratorian already known for his ardent attachment to Jansenism and destined soon to be its leader. He earnestly recommended it to his priests. This approbation was the source of all the cardinal’s troubles.
Believing themselves thenceforth certain of his sympathy the Jansenists, on de Noailles’ elevation to the See of Paris, published a posthumous work of de Barcos (q.v.), entitled “Exposition de la foy”, really the explanation and defence of the Jansenistic doctrine of grace already condemned by Rome. De Noailles condemned the book (20 August, 1696), at least in the first part of his instruction, but in the second he set forth a theory on grace and predestination closely resembling that of de Barcos. No one was satisfied; the ordinance displeased both the Jansenists and the Jesuits. The former did not fail to call attention to the contradictory attitudes of the Bishop of Châlons, who approved Quesnel, and the Archbishop of Paris, who condemned de Barcos. An anonymous pamphlet published under the title “Problème ecclésiastique”, placed side by side twenty-nine identical propositions which had been approved in the Quesnel’s work and condemned in de Barcos’. Parliament condemned the lampoon to be burned; six months later it was put on the Index (2 June, 1699) and proscribed by the Holy Office.
The controversies occasioned by the publication of the “Cas de Conscience” and Quesnel’s “Réflexions morales” (for which see JANSENIUS, in Vol. VIII, 291-2) involved de Noailles deeply in the Jansenist quarrel. In spite of repeated papal decisions of the Holy See, the cardinal, for many years, would not accept the Bull “Unigenitus”. Finally he yielded in May, 1728, and on 11 October following published his unconditioned acceptance of the Bull. He afterwards retracted various writings, which seemed to cast doubt on the sincerity of his submission; he restored to the Jesuits the faculties of which he had deprived them thirteen years before. He died two months later, aged 78, regarded by all with respect and esteem. His weak and uncertain character caused him to offend everybody — Jesuits and Jansenists, pope and king, partisans and adversaries of the Bull “Unigenitus”. He lacked discernment in the choice of his confidants; he bore a great name, and played an important part in his time, but lacked many qualities of a great bishop. His works — diocesan ordinances and parochial instructions — are mostly collected in the “Synodicon ecclesiæ Parisiensis” (Paris, 1777).
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DE BARTHÉLMY, Le card. de Noailles d’après sa correspondance (Paris, 1886); SAINT-SIMON, Mémoires, ed. BOILISLE, II (Paris, 1879); [VILLEFORE], Anecdotes ou Mémoires secrets (s.l., 1730); LAFITAU, Réfutation des Anecdotes (Aix, 1734); PIGOT, Mém. pour servir à l’hist. ecclés. pendant le XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1853), I, II; [GUILLON], Hist. gén. de l’église pendant le XVIIIe siècle (Besançon, 1823); LE ROY, La France et Rome de 1700 à 1715 (Paris, 1892); CROUSLÉ, Fénelon et Bossuet (Paris, 1895).
ANTOINE DEGERT Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Noailles, Louis Antoine De
a Roman Catholic prelate of great note in French ecclesiastical affairs, was born May 27, 1651. Having entered the Church at an early age, he was, while quite young, made abbot of Aubrac; in 1675 he became D.D.; bishop of Cahors in 1679; of Chalons in 1680; and finally archbishop of Paris in 1695. At the beginning of the Quietist difficulties he interfered as mediator between Bossuet and Fenelon against both of whom he wrote subsequently. In 1700 he was appointed cardinal, through the influence of Louis XIV. While yet bishop of Chalons, he had approved the Reflexions morales with which Quesnel had prefaced his edition of the N.T. (1693); this turned out a source of many annoyances to him afterwards, the more so as he subsequently condemned the Exposition de la Foi of the abbe de Barcos, another Jansenist work thus rejecting what he had formerly commended. He afterwards led the other bishops in protesting against the bull Unigenitus, and became one of the most ardent friends of the Jansenists.
The Jesuits immediately set in motion all their influence to have Noailles brought to condign punishment. The object they had at heart was to secure the blind acceptation of the pope’s bull and the degradation of the prelates who had ventured on demurring; and they induced pope Clement XI to address a brief to cardinal Noailles in April, 1714, summoning him to accept the bull within fifteen days, purely and simply and without comment; after the lapse of which term, if still refractory, the pope declared that he would strip him of the dignity of cardinal. Louis XIV, though in favor of the acceptation of the bull, yet resented this threatened exercise of the pope’s authority against the archbishop of Paris, and would not permit the brief to have public course. This, however, did not quash the dispute, which became more and more envenomed; until, in November, 1716, the pope coerced the cardinals into subscribing a letter he had himself drawn up, whereby they professed to exhort their colleague Noailles to submit, and which was accompanied by a brief directed to the regent Orleans, wherein the pope declared that if this appeal were disregarded no further mercy could be expected.
This brief the clergy were inhibited by royal veto from receiving; and in March, 1717, four bishops lodged with the Sorbonne a formal appeal, in the matter of the bull Unigenitus, to a future general council, and this appeal cardinal Noailles approved as quite canonical, although he himself still abstained from the same step. But when it seemed certain that in Rome the proceeding of the bishops was about to be censured, Noailles himself lodged, though for a time secretly, a similar appeal to the pope, melius informandus, and to a general council, in the matter of the bull, and of the pope’s refusal to explain it. Manifestly here was an act of possibly very deferential, but decidedly very distinct resistance to the will of the pope, who was on his part little disposed to put up with it. Agents were now dispatched to and fro between Paris and Rome, but no form of explanation which Noailles could suggest found acceptance with the pope; and at last, on March 3, 1718, there appeared a decree of the Holy Office condemning severely the appeal of the four bishops and of cardinal Noailles. This was followed up by tidings of the imminent issue of a brief pronouncing those schismatics who did not accept the bull simply and purely; whereupon Noailles, to have the start of the pope, convened a general assembly of the chapter of Notre Dame, to whom he made public his appeal, which next day was stuck against the churchdoors in his diocese. This led to a furious decree of the Inquisition, Aug. 12, 1719, against the cardinal, and, as Dorsanne would have us believe, the pope’s mind was now firmly set on the project of stripping Noailles of his red hat. Yet, with all the passions excited against the recalcitrant obstinacy of the French prelate in refusing to accept papal dictation implicitly, it would appear as if the desire to wreak the uttermost vengeance on his head was arrested by the sense of the practical difficulties that stood in the way of its accomplishment. In spite of the pope’s animosity and the fanning action of the Jesuits, it was found desirable to let the matter drop. Cardinal Noailles, though censured and fulminated against, escaped further persecution, and continued archbishop of Paris to his death, before which he had reconciled himself with his adversaries by a compromise due mainly to the regent Orleans’ influence. Noailles accepted the bull Unigenitus Oct. 11, 1728.
While his actions in this case may have been consistent, his whole life may be said to have been checkered considerably by a most inconsistent course. He was for a time a Jansenist, or at least a most ardent supporter of that sect. Placed in positions of trust, and endangered in these by opposition from Rome and the Jesuits, he wavered frequently in his tasks, and would only go forward when assured of the protection of the court, or those in influence there. Thus, in 1709, cardinal Noailles gave his consent to the suppression of the Port-Royal (q.v.). community, the closing of the abbey in the October following, and the removal of its inmates accompanied by circumstances of great cruelty, though he himself had long befriended the Port-Royalists, and was really in sympathy with them.
That he ordered this work of destruction simply from weakness, he acknowledged himself in after-life; and the memory of these unjust deeds no doubt plunged him into great depths of anguish. In solemn testimony of his repentance he went to the ruins of Port-Royal, that he might there mourn as a penitent, exclaiming, I will see my enormous sin in all its horrors! Here in the midst of this miserable devastation, here will I unburden my mind (comp. Tregelles, Jansenists, p. 40 sq.). Nothing that Noailles could now do to repair the injury of his former acts would he leave undone; but alas that his first work was so well done that it could never be changed for better or for worse! He had lived to please the master Rho gave him bread, and he had wronged those who had hoped to find in him a friend and protector; once their life destroyed, he had not the power to resuscitate them, and there remained for him only a hoary age, full of remorse for unjust acts and an inconsistent life. Jervis has well summed up Noailles’s life and work: His moral character was stainless his piety unquestionable, his pastoral zeal universally acknowledged; but he was of an irresolute temper, and deficient in intellectual depth and solidity of judgment. He labored, consequently, under great disadvantages as an administrator (Hist. Ch. of France [Lond. 1872, 2 vols. 8vo], 2:89). Cardinal Noailles died May 4, 1729. See S: Pere Avrigny, Memoires chronologiques et dogmatiques (Paris, 1730): Bansset, Histoire de Fenelon (ibid. 1808); Picot, Memoires pour servir a l’hist. ecclesiast. pendant Leviticus 18 me sibcle (1806 and 1815); Journal de l’cabb Dorsanne (Rome, 1753).; Villefore, Anecdotes ou memoires -sur la constitution Unigenitus (Paris, 1730); Journal historique du regne de Louis X V (ibid. 1766, 12mo); Baron d’Espagnac. Hist. de Maurice, comfe de Saxe (1775, 2 vols. 12mo); Le Bas, Diet. encyclopecique de la France; Le Moniteur universel (from the 7th to the 9th Thermidor. an. 2:No. 310); Voltaire, Precis du rsgne de Louis XV, ch. lxvii; Chronologie militaire, v. 390; Waroquier, Tableau histor. de la noblesse de France, p. 274; Guettee, Hist. de l’Eglise de France, 11:144 sq.; Jervis, Hist. of France, vol. ii (see Index); De Felice, Hist. Ch. of France, p. 350 sq.; Wessenberg, Gesch. der Kirchenversamlungen, 4:348, 402; Cartwright, Hist. Papal Conclaves, p. 225-228; Migne, Nouv. Encyclop. theologique, 3:93; Gallia Christiana, vol. 1, 8, 9; Saint-Simon, Histoire de Port Royal.