Paul de Noailles, 6th Duke of Noailles (4 January 1802 – 29 May 1885) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 nobleman and historian

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

.

He was the grandnephew of the heirless Jean-Paul-François de Noailles, 5th Duke of Noailles, and succeeded him as Duke of Noailles

Duke of Noailles

The title of Duke of Noailles was a French peerage created in 1663 for Anne of Noailles, count of Ayen.The second, third and fourth dukes were all marshals of France...

 on the latter's death in 1824, although he did not take his seat among the peers of France until his majority in 1827. A Knight of the Golden Fleece, he was also noted as a writer and parliamentary orator.

The Duke of Noailles was elected to succeed his friend and confidant Chateaubriand

François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...

 to the Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

 on 11 January 1849 with twenty five votes out of thirty one. As Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....

 at that time obtained only four votes, this development occasioned an outburst of protest in the literary press. With the duc Pasquier and the duc de Broglie

Victor, 3rd duc de Broglie

Achille-Léonce-Victor-Charles, 3rd duc de Broglie, called Victor de Broglie was a French statesman and diplomat. He was twice President of the Council during the July Monarchy, from August 1830 to November 1830 and from March 1835 to February 1836...

, the duc de Noailles formed the "parti des ducs" (dukes' party).

Family

He was married on 5 February 1823 to Alicia de Rochechouart-Mortemart, daughter of Victurnien de Rochechouart, 8th duc de Mortemart,
and had three children:

1. Pauline-Victurnienne de Noailles
2. Jules-Charles-Victurnien, 7th duc de Noailles
   Jules-Charles-Victurnien, 7th duc de Noailles
   Jules-Charles-Victurnien de Noailles, 7th Duke of Noailles , son of Paul, 6th duc de Noailles, acceded to the title of duc de Noailles on his father's death in 1885. He was succeeded by his son, Adrien de Noailles....
   
   
3. Emmanuel-Henri-Victurnien, marquis de Noailles
   Emmanuel-Henri-Victurnien, marquis de Noailles
   Emmanuel-Henri-Victurnien, marquis de Noailles , was a French diplomat, historian and literary critic, the second son of Paul de Noailles.He was the second son of Paul de Noailles...