Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/568

524 N O A N O B Revolution, he returned to Paris in 1814, and was made a lieutenant- general. Louis MARIE (1756-1804), vicomte de Noailles, was the second son of the marechal de Mouchy, and the most distinguished of all his family. He served brilliantly under his brother-in-law La Fayette in America, and was the officer who concluded the capitu lation of Yorktown. He was elected to the states-general in 1789, and at once show r ed his enthusiasm for liberty. He began the famous "orgie," as Mirabeau called it, on 4th August, when all privi leges were abolished, and with d Aiguillon proposed the abolition of titles and liveries in June 1790. When the Revolution became more pronounced he emigrated to America, and became a partner in Binghani s bank at 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 in making for Havana his ship was attacked by an English frigate, and after a long engagement he was severely wounded, and died of his wounds on 9th January 1804. The whole family of Noailles had not a more brilliant representative than the friend of La Fayette, Louis, vicomte de Noailles. NOAKHALI, or NOACOLLY, a district in the lieutenant- governorship of Bengal, India, lying between 22 22 and 23 3 17 N. lat. and 90 43 and 91 E. long, bounded on the IS", by Tipperah, on the E. by Hill Tipperah state and Chittagong, on the S. by the Bay of Bengal, and on the W. by the main stream of the Meghna, with an area of 1641 square miles, consists of an alluvial tract of main land, together with several islands at the mouth of the Meghna. In general, each homestead is surrounded by a thick grove of betel and cocoa-nut palms, and in the north western tracts dense forests of betel -nut palms extend for miles. The district is very fertile ; and, with the exception of some sandbanks and recent accretions, every part of it is under continuous cultivation. The process of alluvion is gradually but steadily going on, the mainland extending seawards. Wild animals and small game are numerous. The population of the district was 820,772 in 1881, of whom 603,592 were Mohammedans. The district contains no town exceed ing 5000 inhabitants. Sudharam, the civil station, is little more than a large village, with a population (in 1872) of 4752. Rice forms the great staple of cultivation; and rice, betel -nuts, and cocoa-nuts are exported. Noakhali is peculiarly liable to destructive floods from the sea, generally caused by southerly gales or cyclones occur ring at the time when the Meghna is swollen by heavy rains, and at nood- tides, the tidal bore being sometimes 20 feet high, and moving at the rate of 15 miles an hour. The cyclone and storm- wave of 31st October 1876 was terribly disastrous, sweeping over the whole delta of the Meghna. The loss of human life was esti mated at 100,000. The Mohammedan population of the islands at the mouth of the Meghna practised piracy up to a comparatively recent date, and at the beginning of the 17th century Portuguese pirates, under Sebastian Gonzales, occupied Sandwfp. They were ultimately reduced to subjection by Shaista Khan, the governor of Bengal, about the middle of the century ; and their descendants have gradually sunk to the level of the natives surrounding them, whose dress, customs, and language they have, for the most part, adopted. They are Christians, and retain the old Portuguese names. About 1756 the East India Company established factories in Noakhali and Tipperah, the ruins of some of which still remain. NOBILI, LEOPOLDO (1784-1834), was in youth an officer of artillery, but afterwards became professor of physics in the archducal museum at Florence, the old habitat of the Accademia del Cimento. His most valuable contributions to science consist in the suggestion of the astatic combina tion of two needles, by which the sensibility of a galvano meter is so greatly increased, and in the invention of the so-called thermo- multiplier or thermo-electric pile. His own experimental work with these instruments was soon eclipsed by the brilliant applications made of them by Melloni and Forbes. He also discovered the exquisitely coloured transparent films of metal deposited by electro chemical processes, which from their common form are usually known as Nobili s rings. Guebhard has lately im proved the process for producing them. Nobili has left a large number of theoretical writings, chiefly on magnetism, light, and electricity, most of which are to be found in the Bibliotheque Universelle of Geneva. It is worthy of note that for the measurement of currents he seems to have pre ferred the use of his "rings" to the use of the galvanometer. NOBILITY. To form a true understanding of what is strictly implied in the word " nobility " it is needful to distinguish its meaning from that of several words with which it is likely to be confounded. In England nobility is apt to be confounded with the peculiar institution of the British peerage. Yet nobility, in some shape or another, has existed in most places and times of the world s history, while the British peerage is an institution purely local, and one which has actually hindered the existence of a nobility in the sense which the word bears in most other countries. Nor is nobility the same thing as aristocracy. This last is a word which is often greatly abused ; but, whenever it is used with any regard to its true meaning, it is a word strictly political, implying a particular form of government. But nobility is not neces sarily a political term ; the distinction which it implies may be accompanied by political privileges or it may not. Again, it is sometimes thought that both nobility and aristocracy are in some special way connected with kingly government. To not a few it would seem a contra diction to speak of nobility or aristocracy in a republic. Yet, though many republics have eschewed nobility, there is nothing in a republican, or even in a democratic, form of government inconsistent with the existence of nobility ; and it is only in a republic that aristocracy, in the strict sense of the word, can exist. Aristocracy implies the existence of nobility ; but nobility does not imply aris tocracy ; it may exist under any form of government. The peerage, as it exists in the three British kingdoms, is something which is altogether peculiar to the three British kingdoms, and which has nothing in the least degree like it elsewhere. Nobility, then, in the strict sense of the word, is the Defmi- hereditary handing on from generation to generation of tion - some acknowledged pre-eminence, a pre-eminence founded on hereditary succession, and on nothing else. Such nobility may be immemorial or it may not. There may or there may not be a power vested somewhere of con ferring nobility ; but it is essential to the true idea of nobility that, when once acquired, it shall go on for ever to all the descendants or, more commonly, only to all the descendants in the male line of the person first ennobled or first recorded as noble. The pre-eminence so handed on may be of any kind, from substantial political power to mere social respect and precedence. It does not seem necessary that it should be formally enacted by law if it is universally acknowledged by usage. It may be marked by titles or it may not. It is hardly needful to prove that nobility does not imply wealth, though nobility without wealth runs some risk of being forgotten. This definition seems to take in all the kinds of nobility which have existed in different times and places. They have differed widely in the origin of the noble class and in the amount of privilege implied in membership of it ; but they all agree in the transmission of some privilege or other to all the descendants, or to all the male descendants, of the first noble. In strictness nobility and gentry are the same thing. Nobility This fact is overshadowed in England, partly by the and habitual use of the word " gentleman " in various secondary gen rj uses, partly by the prevalent confusion between nobility and peerage. But that they are the same is proved by the use of the French word gentilkomme, a word which has pretty well passed out of modern use, but which, as long as it remained in use, never lost its true meaning. There were very wide distinctions within the French nobiesse, but they all formed one privileged class as distinguished