François-Joseph-Michel Noël

A student then a professor at the collège Louis-le-Grand, Noël left his job at the outbreak of the French Revolution, collaborating on the journal la Chronique and going on several diplomatic missions; in 1795/96 to the Batavian Republic.

Named a member of the Tribunat, he left it to go to Lyon to fill the role of commissar-general of police.

in-12), which became a classic and remained in usage despite well-founded criticisms of it for imposing arbitrary and contradictory rules on the spirit of the French language and on good authors' usage of it ; Nouveau dictionnaire de la langue française (1826 ; in-12).

Also by Noël, with various collaborators : Dictionnaire étymologique, critique, historique, anecdotique et littéraire... pour servir à l’histoire de la langue française, 1839, avec M. L.-J.

in-8), anthology of satirical chansons and verse on Louis XIV and his court ; Éphémérides politiques, littéraires et religieuses (Paris, 1796–1797, 4. vol.