François Noël (18 August 1651– 17 September 1729) was a Flemish Jesuit poet, dramatist, and missionary to the Qing Empire. Nöel unsuccessfully testified in support of Chinese converts to Catholicism retaining ancestral veneration during the Chinese Rites controversy but also opposed incorporating other elements of Confucianism into Catholic practice. He also achieved notability for translating several Chinese texts for European audiences. Name François Noël wrote his translations in Latin, in which his name appears as Franciscus Noel. He is also known by its anglicization as Francis Noel. He was known to the Chinese as Wei Fangji. Life Early life François Noël was a Fleming born on 18 August 1651 in Hestrud, Hainault, France. He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at the age of nineteen on 30 September 1670 in Tournai, which had just been returned to France from the Spanish Netherlands two years before under the terms of the War of Devolution's Treaty of Aachen. He was a teacher of grammar and rhetoric for several years. He studied theology, mathematics, and astronomy at the University of Douai. In China He wanted to join the Japan mission but by this point Christianity (and European visitors generally) had been banned within the Tokugawa shogunate for many years. He nonetheless traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, and left for East Asia in January 1684. His journey was funded by Maria, the duchess of Aveiro. He hoped to get passage to Japan on a Dutch East India Company mission, but in Malacca he was assured by "Belgian Catholics from our cities" that this was impossible. He debarked at Macao on 9 August 1685, where the return of some shipwrecked Japanese sailors caused him to hope that trade would be resumed; this was fruitless. He made his vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the fourth vow of "special obedience" to the pope on 2 February the next year and, after a final failed attempt to reach Japan, finally formally joined the China mission by September 1687. He is sometimes numbered among the Figurists, the Jesuit missionaries who came to think that Christianity had been the ancient religion of China, brought there by Noah's son Shem. Noël learned rudimentary Chinese on Macao and traveled to the mainland in 1687. He traveled to Shanghai, then part of Jiangsu and—at nearby Xujiahui—the home of the family of the influential convert Xu Guangqi. After further training, he began his mission