Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/567

N O A N O A 523 NOAH (TO. Nwe, Noe) is, according to the book of Genesis, the son of Lamech, and the second father of mankind after the deluge. His name, which is of obscure origin, is connected in Gen. v. 29 with a play on the word DH3 (nahem), to comfort. The story of the flood, the two elements of which the extant narrative is com posed, and the parallel traditions of other nations, par ticularly of the Babylonians, have been spoken of in the article DELUGE. The earlier narrative does not mention the point at which Noah left the ark, and it is doubtful if Gen. xi. 1 sq., which seems to be a fragment of a still older tradition, and which makes mankind disperse from Babylonia, originally stood in any connexion with the story of Noah and the flood. The later priestly (or, as it used to be called, Elohistic) narrative names the mountains of Ararat, i.e., one of the mountains of the land of Ararat, as the place where the ark rested. The identification of this mountain with the Ararat of modern maps (M. Masis) is tolerably old ; Jerome (on Isa. xxxvii. 38) already places the land of Ararat in this quarter ; but a more ancient Jewish tradition, which remained alive throughout the Middle Ages, seeks Ararat in the land of Kardu, i.e., the mountains of the Kurds east of the Tigris (comp. ARARAT). From the Bible it is only certain (Isa. xxxvii. 38 ; Jer. li. 27) that the kingdom of Ararat was a remote northern district. After describ ing the covenant which God made with Noah on leaving the ark (Gen. ix. 1-17) the priestly narrative has nothing further to tell of the patriarch s life ; but an older frag ment (Gen. ix. 20-27) makes him plant a vineyard and drink of the wine with consequences which lead him to pronounce a blessing on Shem and Japheth and a curse of slavery on Canaan. The story seems to require, for clear ness, the omission of the words " Ham, the father of " in verse 22 ; and if this be so we find that in one tradition the sons of Noah are Shem, Japheth, and Canaan. So taken, the names of the three sons would represent three elements, not in the population of the world, but in that of Palestine. Shem, in Hebrew, means name, and " sons of name," as opposed to "sons of no name" (Job xxx. 8, A. V., " sons of base men "), would naturally denote the Hebrew pure-blooded aristocracy, in antithesis to the subject aborigines (Canaan). Wellhausen, to whom this ingenious theory is due, would further identify Japheth in this passage with the Philistines ; Budde thinks rather of the Phoenicians. That the divisions Shem, Ham, and Japheth had not always one fixed sense is clear from Gen. x., where two distinct schemes of classification have been mixed up with such results as that Sheba and Havilah appear under Ham at ver. 7, and under Shem in ver. 28 sq. The one division appears to be mainly geographical, and is preserved complete, vers. 2-7, 20-23, 31 ; it bears the marks of the priestly narrator, and was not written before the exile. On the other hand, vers. 8-19, 25-30 belong to the older narrative, and are frag ments of a classification seemingly more ethnographical in character. NOAILLES. This great French family took its name from the castle of Noailles, in the territory of Ayen, be tween Brives and Turenne in the Limousin, and dated its nobility from the llth century. It did not obtain more than local and provincial fame until the 16th century, when its head, ANTOINE de Noailles (1504-1562), became admiral of France, and was ambassador in England during three important years, 1553-1556, during which he main tained a gallant but unsuccessful rivalry with the Spanish ambassador, Simon Renard. HENRI (1554-1623), son of Antoine, was a commander in the religious wars, and was made comte d Ayen by Henry IV. in 1593. The grandson of the first count played an important part in the Fronde and the early years of the reign of Louis XIV., became a captain-general of the newly-won province of Roussillon, and in 1663 was made due d Ayen, and peer of France. The sons of the first duke raised the family to its greatest fame, and occupied very important positions in the later years of the reign of Louis XIV. The elder son, ANNE JULES (1650-1708), was one of the chief generals of France towards the end of the reign of Louis, and, after raising the regiment of Noailles in 1689, he commanded in chief in Spain during the war of the Spanish succession, and was made marshal of France in 1693. The younger son, Louis ANTOINE (1651-1729), took orders, and rose to the most important position of the church in France when he was made archbishop of Paris in 1695. He held this high dignity for more than thirty years, until his death in 1729 ; he was made a cardinal in 1700. These two distinguished brothers had made their family the most famous in France, with the exception of the Rohans, and the name occurs with almost confusing reiteration throughout the 18th century. ADRIEN MAURICE (1678-1766), the third duke, was also a soldier, and learned war under his father in Spain. He served in all the most important wars of the reign of Louis XV. in Italy and Germany, and became the second marechal de Noailles in 1734. His last command in the war of the Austrian succession was not a successful one, for he was beaten by the English at the battle of Dettingen in 1743. Two sons of the third duke also attained the rank of marshal of France. The elder, Louis (1713-1793), who bore the title of due d Ayen till his father s death in 1766, when he became due de Noailles, served in most of the wars of the 18th century without particular distinction, but was nevertheless made a marshal of France, as the marechal de Noailles, in 1 775. He refused to emigrate during the Revolution, but escaped the fate of most noblemen by dying in August 1793, before the Terror reached its height. On the 4th Thermidor, just before the fall of Robespierre, the aged duchesse de Noailles was executed with her daughter-in-law, the duchesse d Ayen, and her granddaughter, the vicomtesse de Noailles. JEAN PAUL FRANCOIS (1739-1824), the fifth duke, was, like his family, in the army, but his heart was bent on scientific pursuits, and for his eminence as a chemist he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1777. He became due d Ayen in 1766 on his grandfather s death, and ducde Noailles on his father s in 1793. Having emigrated in 1792, he lived in Switzerland until the restoration in 1814, when he took his seat as a peer of France. He had no son, but several daughters, one of whom married La Fayette, and another her cousin, the vicomte de Noailles. He Avas succeeded as due de Noailles by his grand-nephew, PAUL (b. 1802), who has won some reputation as an author, and who became a member of the French Academy in the place of Chateaubriand in 1849. The grandfather of Paul de Noailles, and brother of the fifth duke, EMMANUEL MARIE Louis (1743-1822), marquis de Noailles, was a distin guished diplomatist of the 1 8th century : he was ambassador at Amsterdam from 1770-1776, at London 1776-1783, and at Vienna 1783-1792; and, like his brother, he survived the Revolution, and lived to see the Restoration. One other branch of the family deserves notice. PHILIPPE (1715- 1794), comte de Noailles, was a younger brother of the fourth duke, and a more distinguished soldier than his brother. He served at Minden and in other campaigns, and was made a marshal on the same day as his brother, under the title of marechal de Mouchy. He was long in great favour at court, and his wife was first lady of honour to Marie Antoinette, and was nicknamed by her Madame Etiquette. This court favour brought down punishment in the days of the Revolution, and the old marshal and his wife were guillotined on the 27th June 1794. His two sons, the prince de Poix and the vicomte de Noailles, were both members of the Constituent Assembly. The prince de Poix, who was a captain of the body guards, sat on the right of the assembly, and emigrated in 1792, but, surviving the