The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 29, no. 7 (March, 1971)

"A Young Man Impatient
to
Distinguish Himself"
The VJcomte de Noail/es as Portrayed by Gilbert Stuart
JOHN K. H OWAT
Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture
T HE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM recently purchased an extremely beautiful,
important, and intriguing addition to its collection of American portraiture,
a previously undiscovered full-length portrayal of Louis-Marie, Vicomte de
Noailles (shown in color on the back cover), painted in Philadelphia during 1798
by Gilbert Stuart. It was the Vicomte, representing the French troops under
General Rochambeau, who, in partnership with Colonel Laurens, representing
General Washington, negotiated with the British on October 20, 1781, prior to
the surrender the following day at Yorktown. This recollection is an agreeable
one to Americans as we await the bicentennial of the country, but the Vicomte's
martial activities at and before Yorktown were only a small part of his flirtation
with history.
The Vicomte today seems to fulfill a past generation's ideal of the dashing adventurer
who combines high birth, intelligence, liveliness, charm, idealism, and
courage with a driving thirst for glory that finally entices him to a patriotic death.
His political changeability from ancien regime aristocrat to Revolutionary politician
to emigre Royalist to Napoleonic warrior might detract from the perfect
picture of the ideal adventurer, but it should not be forgotten that his more
famous contemporary and acquaintance, Tallyrand, provided a dazzling model
of a political gymnast. Political activity, after all, may well be defined as the art
of compromise and survival in the furtherance of certain ideals, and of life itself.
Louis-Marie, Vicomte de Noailles, was born in Paris, April 17,1756, the second
son of the Duc de Mouchy, a marshal of France and member of one of France's
most noble families, which has produced numerous distinguished diplomatic,
literary, and military figures. Noailles was raised and trained by his father to be a
military man. With his marriage in 1773 to a daughter of the Duc d'Ayen, Noailles
became brother-in-law to the Marquis de Lafayette, and with Lafayette and their
youthful contemporary and relative Louis-Philippe, Comte de Segur, he was a
ranking member of Marie-Antoinette's extravagant and coquettish court that
foregathered at the Epee de Bois, a country cabaret near her country retreat at
Les Porcherons. The Vicomte apparently distinguished himself there as a heavy
drinker in the newly imported English style, and for his "manly accomplishments."
According to Segur's Memoires, ou Souvenirs et Anecdotes, published
in the 1820s:
327
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