He became involved in scandal and was suspended in 1905 when two of his protégés were accused of extortion and other abuses of power, but later he was reinstated.

Jean-Baptiste Ernest Noirot was born at Bourbonne-les-Bains in Haute Marne on 18 August 1851, son of a timber merchant.

[1] Noirot was the artist and photographer on Dr. Jean-Marie Bayol's 1881–1882 expedition to explore the southern rivers of Senegal and Guinea.

[2] The expedition aimed to promote trade with the French as an alternative to existing arrangements with British traders in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

[2] The Almamis of Futa Jallon, Ibrahima and Amadou, sent an embassy of five notables that accompanied Noirot and Bayol on their return journey to France in January 1882.

[7] It may be due to this work that he was offered a position in the commission for the Exposition Coloniale Française held at Anvers in 1885–86.

[8] In June 1897 Ernest Noirot was appointed administrator of the newly acquired region of Fouta Djallon in what is now Guinea, where he dedicated himself to eliminating the institution of slavery.

[12] By the late 1890s Boubou had amassed wealth in gold, livestock and slaves that far exceeded what could be explained by his salary.

This involvement of a French official in a "native" squabble caused a stir, and an investigation was launched.

[15] Another player in the Futa Jallon story was a clerk named Hubert, a nephew of the explorer Louis Gustave Binger, who became a protégé of Noirot.

Hubert adopted an extravagant lifestyle, travelling in great pomp and style with an elaborate entourage, riding a white horse, preceded by praise singers and followed by several of his many mistresses carried in hammocks.

[12] Despite continued and growing abuses by Boubou and Hubert, Noirot provided protection to both men.