Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles, 6th Duke of Ayen (

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, 18 September 1893 –

Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...

, 14 April 1945) was the son of Adrien de Noailles, 8th Duke of Noailles and a member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Biography

He was the only son of Adrien de Noailles, 8th Duke of Noailles and Yolande Louise Marie Valentine d'Albert de Luynes (1870–1952). His maternal grandfather was Charles Honoré Emmanuel d'Albert de Luynes, 9th

Duke of Luynes The Duke of Luynes (french: duc de Luynes ) is a territorial name belonging to the noble French house d'Albert. Luynes is, today, a commune of the Indre-et-Loire ''département'' in France. The family of Albert, which sprang from Thomas Alberti ( ...

, and Yolande Françoise Marie Julienne de La Rochefoucauld (a granddaughter of Prince

Jules de Polignac Jules Auguste Armand Marie de Polignac, Count of Polignac (; 14 May 178030 March 1847), then Prince of Polignac, and briefly 3rd Duke of Polignac in 1847, was a French statesman and ultra-royalist politician after the Revolution. He served as pr ...

, the 7th

Prime Minister of France The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers. The prime minister ...

). He succeeded to the

subsidiary title A subsidiary title is a title of authority or title of honour that is held by a royal or noble person but which is not regularly used to identify that person, due to the concurrent holding of a greater title. United Kingdom An example in the Unit ...

Duke of Ayen, but he and his son Adrien did not outlive his father, the 8th Duke of Noailles. The Dukedom of Noailles therefore passed to a cousin, François, 9th Duke of Noailles, though the

château de Maintenon The Château de Maintenon is a ''château'', developed from the original castle, situated in the ''Communes of France, commune'' of Maintenon in the Eure-et-Loir ''Departments of France, département'' of France. It is best known as being the priv ...

was inherited by his daughter Geneviève.

Resistance and imprisonment

He was a member of the

, arrested by the Gestapo on 22 January 1942 as a result of an anonymous denunciation. He was tortured and interned at the Paris

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

headquarters on

Avenue Foch Avenue Foch () is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, named after World War I Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1929. It is one of the most prestigious streets in Paris, and one of the most expensive addresses in the world, home to ...

and then in

Compiègne Compiègne (; pcd, Compiène) is a commune in the Oise department in northern France. It is located on the river Oise. Its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois''. Administration Compiègne is the seat of two cantons: * Compiègne-1 (with 19 c ...

, and then deported successively to

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

, Flossenburg,

Oranienburg Oranienburg () is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel. Geography Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin. Division of the town Oranienburg ...

, and finally

, where he died a few days before the end of the war. In 1952, the Paris military court sentenced Suzanne Provost, a Gestapo collaborator accused of having denounced Jean de Noailles, to twenty years of imprisonment.

Personal life

On 16 June 1919, he married Solange Marie Christine Louise de Labriffe (also known as Solange d'Ayen; 1898–1976) in Paris. Together they had two children: * Geneviève Hélène Anne Marie Yolande de Noailles (1921–1998), who married Jean Gaston Amaury Raindre (b. 1924) in New York in 1947. * Adrien Maurice Edmond Marie Camille de Noailles (1925–1944), who died in Rupt-sur-Moselle. As he predeceased his father and did not have male issue, upon his father's death in 1953, his cousin

François de Noailles François de Noailles, (2 July 1519 – 19 September 1585) Papal Prothonotary, made Bishop of Dax in 1556, was French ambassador in Venice in the 1560s, and French ambassador of Charles IX to the Ottoman Empire from 1571 to 1575. François was on ...

succeeded to the dukedom of Noailles.

Legacy

In October 1945, the

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...

municipal council decided to rename Avenue Bellevue to Avenue Jean de Noailles.

References

Jean-Maurice-Paul-Jules Jean Maurice Paul Jules Ayen, Jean-Maurice-Paul-Jules, 6th duc d' Ayen, Jean-Maurice-Paul-Jules, 6th duc d' French people who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Buchenwald concentration camp survivors Flossenbürg concentration camp survivors Oranienburg concentration camp prisoners French Resistance members Resistance members who died in Nazi concentration camps French torture victims {{france-noble-stub