and lectured on mathematics at the Jesuit-staffed Charles-Ferdinand University. He also published Latin translations of classic Chinese texts and works on Sinology which he had worked over for decades. Noël's translations were banned in the Papal States and Holy Roman Empire, but were praised by Du Halde in his Description of China. They were difficult to acquire in France and western Europe but were among the most influential Jesuit works in Germany and eastern Europe, where they inspired works by Johann Benedikt Carpzov, Wilhelm von Leibnitz, and Christian Wolff, the latter of whom lost his position at the University of Halle because of his immoderate praise of Confucius and admission that the Chinese had been able to distinguish between right and wrong without exposure to Christianity. Noël's Historical Notices—which aimed to reopen the Chinese rites issue—does not seem to have been formally banned but was almost immediately suppressed. It seems likely that its claimed papal imprimatur was that which Clement had granted to publish findings before his 1704 decision; on 19 March 1715, he issued the bull repeating in stronger terms his condemnations and the incompatibility of Chinese ritual with Catholicism. On 10 June that year, Noël sought approval to return to China although he was 64 at the time. He was denied permission. He died on 17 September 1729 in Lille, France. Works Noël published his Mathematical and Physical Observations Made in India and China () at the Charles-Ferdinand University's press in Prague, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), in 1710. Noël's effort to translate the Chinese classics was a generally scholarly one, aiming to present it more correctly on its own terms than previous Jesuit editions like the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus had, but it was still an exercise undertaken in order to further missionizing among the Chinese. The preface to his Six Chinese Classics ends with the admonition that the reader should bear the Christian life in mind while reading the volume's Chinese teachings and the hope that the work would assist in making Christ the cornerstone to every life. The Jesuits initially focused on translating Confucian classics, rather than Buddhist scriptures or the Taoist canon, because of its greater importance in Chinese officialdom under the Ming and Qing. The works of Mencius were not originally translated because Matteo Ricci disliked Mencian interpretations of the other classic texts, particularly his strong condemnation of celibacy as unfilial. Noël published his