Claude-Adrien Nonnotte

Claude-Adrien Nonnotte (born in Besançon, 29 July 1711; died there, 3 September 1793) was a French Jesuit controversialist, best known for his writings against Voltaire.

When Voltaire began to issue his Essai sur les moeurs (1754), which the Catholic Church considered an attack on Christianity, Nonnotte published, anonymously, the Examen critique ou Réfutation du livre des moeurs; and when Voltaire finished his publication (1758), Nonnotte revised his book, which he published at Avignon (2 vols., 1762).

These publications obtained for their author a eulogistic Brief from Pope Clement XIII (1768), and the congratulations of St. Alphonsus Liguori.

The latter declared that he had always at hand his "golden works" in which the chief truths of the Faith were defended with learning and propriety against the objections of Voltaire and his friends.

Nonnotte was also the author of L'emploi de l'argent (Avignon, 1787), translated from Maffei; Le gouvernement des paroisses (posthumous, Paris, 1802).