Louis Antoine de Noailles, ''Cardinal de Noailles'' (27 May 16514 May 1729), second son of Anne de Noailles, 1st Duke of Noailles, was a French

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

and

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

. His signing of the

Unigenitus ''Unigenitus'' (named for its Latin opening words ''Unigenitus Dei Filius'', or "Only-begotten Son of God") is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713. It opened the final phase of the Janse ...

bull in 1728 would end the formal

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

controversy.

Biography

Louis-Antoine de Noailles was born at the Château of Teyssiére in Auvergne, France, on 27 May 1651 to Anne, 1st duc de Noailles and captain- general of Roussillon, and his wife, Louise Boyer, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen

Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (; ; born Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643 by marriage to King Louis XIII. She was also Queen of Navarre until the kingdom's annexation into the French crown ...

.Dégert, Antoine. "Louis-Antoine de Noailles." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 3 June 2017 Noailles received his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

from the Sorbonne on 14 March 1676. He was appointed

bishop of Cahors The Diocese of Cahors (Latin: ''Dioecesis Cadurcensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Cahors'') is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the whole of the department of Lot. In the beginning it was a suffragan o ...

in March 1679 but served only briefly before

Pope Innocent XI Pope Innocent XI (; ; 16 May 1611 – 12 August 1689), born Benedetto Odescalchi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 21 September 1676 until his death on 12 August 1689. Political and religious tensions with ...

ordered him transferred in 1680 to head the

diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

, which made him a

peer of France The Peerage of France () was a hereditary distinction within the French nobility which appeared in 1180 during the Middle Ages. The prestigious title and position of Peer of France () was held by the greatest, highest-ranking members of the Fr ...

. On 19 August 1695, in recognition of Noailles's family connections, King Louis XIV made him archbishop of Paris and Duke of Saint-Cloud, and in 1700

Pope Innocent XII Pope Innocent XII (; ; 13 March 1615 – 27 September 1700), born Antonio Pignatelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1691 to his death in September 1700. He took a hard stance against nepotism ...

made him a

. According to Antoine Degert, writing in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia,'' although Noailles was not brilliant, "he was possessed of piety, zeal, and activity." He is noted for having raised money to feed

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

victims by selling his silver tableware in 1709, and for having spent a considerable part of his inheritance on redecorating Notre Dame. Noailles was a friend of

François Fénelon François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, PSS (), more commonly known as François Fénelon (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. Today, he is remembered mostly as the author of ' ...

, with whom he had studied at the Collège du Plessis before entering the Sorbonne. Nonetheless, he was among the bishops who condemned Fénelon's ''Maximes des Saints,'' ending the theologian's career. Noailles came to know the controversial young Lutheran Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in 1719 during the young man's Grand Tour. The two found great spiritual connection despite their historic denominational differences. They maintained a relationship and correspondence the rest of Noailles' life; and Noailles became a member of Zinzendorf's Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, a secret society where nobles and church leaders committed to work together to build the spiritual Kingdom of God. The Cardinal also served as Godfather to Zinzendorf's son Christian Renatus (1727–1756). Noailles acted as a staunch moralist when at the end of March 1719 he firmly stood behind the curé of Saint-Sulpice. who refused to administer the sacraments to the Regent's daughter, Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Berry, who was in a critical condition giving birth to an illegitimate child in the Palais de Luxembourg. Despite all the pleas of the Regent, Philip II, Duke of Orleans, Noailles refused categorically to overturn the decision of the parish priest.http://rouvroy.medusis.com/docs/1709.html This scandalous confinement wasn't Berry's first incartade. A widow since 1714, the Regent's daughter accumulated lovers and her repeated pregnancies which scandalized the Court were widely gossiped about, oftentimes being attributed to her alleged incestuous affair with the Regent Noailles had a complex relationship with the Jansenists; while he condemned their propositions, more orthodox theologians saw in his own teachings hints of Jansenism, and Noailles was an opponent of the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

in their attacks on the sect. His position on

Pope Clement XI Pope Clement XI (; ; ; 23 July 1649 – 19 March 1721), born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 November 1700 to his death in March 1721. Clement XI was a patron of the arts an ...

's 1713

bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not Castration, castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol cattle in r ...

'' was also controversial; he opposed it, despite papal disapproval, up to 1728 but then abruptly reversed himself shortly before his death. He was succeeded as archbishop of Paris and Duke of Saint-Cloud by Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Noailles, Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de 1651 births 1729 deaths 17th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in France 18th-century French cardinals Archbishops of Paris Bishops of Cahors Bishops of Châlons-sur-Marne Dukes of Saint-Cloud Louis-Antoine 17th-century peers of France 18th-century peers of France People of the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans University of Paris alumni Burials at Notre-Dame de Paris