Louis Marie de Noailles

Louis-Marie, Vicomte de Noailles, painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1798. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Louis-Marie, vicomte de Noailles (17 April 1756 Paris – 9 January 1804 Havana) was the second son of Philippe, duc de Mouchy, and a member of Mouchy branch of the famous Noailles family of the French aristocracy.

He served brilliantly under Lafayette in America, and was the officer who concluded the capitulation of Yorktown in 1781.

He was elected to the Estates-General in 1789. On 4 August 1789, during the French Revolution, he began the famous "orgy", as Mirabeau called it, when all privileges were abolished, and with the duc d'Aiguilion proposed the abolition of titles and liveries in June 1790.

When the Revolution became more pronounced he emigrated to the United States and became a partner in William Bingham's Bank of North America in Philadelphia. He was very successful and might have lived happily had he not accepted a command against the English in San Domingo, under Rochambeau. He made a brilliant defence of the Mole St Nicholas and escaped with the garrison to Cuba, but en route there his ship was attacked by an English frigate and after a long engagement he was severely wounded, dying of his wounds in Havana on 9 January 1804.

References

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Noailles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 722, 723.