FOURMIES, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, on an affluent of the Sambre, 39 m. S.E. of Valenciennes by rail. Pop. (1906) 13,308. It is one of the chief centres in France for wool combing and spinning, and produces a great variety of cloths. The glass-works of Fourmies date from 1599, and were the first established in the north of France. Iron is worked in the vicinity, and there are important forges and foundries. Enamel-ware is also manufactured. In 1891 labour troubles brought about military intervention and consequent bloodshed. A board of trade arbitration and a school of commerce and industry are among the public institutions.
FOURMONT, ÉTIENNE (1683-1745), French orientalist, was born at Herbelai, near Saint Denis, on the 23rd of June 1683. He studied at the Collège Mazarin, Paris, and afterwards in the Collège Montaigu, where his attention was attracted to Oriental languages. Shortly after leaving the college he published a Traduction du commentaire du Rabbin Abraham Aben Esra sur l’ecclésiaste. In 1711 Louis XIV. appointed Fourmont to assist a young Chinese, Hoan-ji, in compiling a Chinese grammar. Hoan-ji died in 1716, and it was not until 1737 that Fourmont published Meditationes Sinicae and in 1742 Grammatica Sinica. He also wrote Réflexions critiques sur les histoires des anciens peuples (1735), and several dissertations printed in the Mémoires of the Academy of Inscriptions. He became professor of Arabic in the Collège de France in 1715. In 1713 he was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, in 1738 a member of the Royal Society of London, and in 1742 a member of that of Berlin. He died at Paris on the 19th of December 1745.
His brother, Michel Fourmont (1690-1746), was also a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and professor of the Syriac language in the Royal College, and was sent by the government to copy inscriptions in Greece.
An account of Étienne Fourmont’s life and a catalogue of his works will be found in the second edition (1747) of his Réflexions critiques.
FOURNET, JOSEPH JEAN BAPTISTE XAVIER (1801-1869), French geologist and metallurgist, was born at Strassburg on the 15th of May 1801. He was educated at the École des Mines at Paris, and after considerable experience as a mining engineer he was in 1834 appointed professor of geology at Lyons. He was a man of wide knowledge and extensive research, and wrote memoirs on chemical and mineralogical subjects, on eruptive rocks, on the structure of the Jura, the metamorphism of the Western Alps, on the formation of oolitic limestones, on kaolinization and on metalliferous veins. On metallurgical subjects also he was an acknowledged authority; and he published observations on the order of sulphurability of metals (loi de Fournet). He died at Lyons on the 8th of January 1869. His chief publications were: Études sur les dépôts métallifères (Paris, 1834); Histoire de la dolomie (Lyons, 1847); De l’extension des terrains houillers (1855); Géologie lyonnaise (Lyons, 1861).
FOURNIER, PIERRE SIMON (1712-1768), French engraver and typefounder, was born at Paris on the 15th of September 1712. He was the son of a printer, and was brought up to his father’s business. After studying drawing under the painter Colson, he practised for some time the art of wood-engraving, and ultimately turned his attention to the engraving and casting of types. He designed many new characters, and his foundry became celebrated not only in France, but in foreign countries. Not content with his practical achievements, he sought to stimulate public interest in his art by the production of various works on the subject. In 1737 he published his Table des proportions qu’il faut observer entre les caractères, which was followed by several other technical treatises. In 1758 he assailed the title of Gutenberg to the honour awarded him as inventor of printing, claiming it for Schöffer, in his Dissertation sur l’origine et les progrès de l’art de graver en bois. This gave rise to a controversy in which Schöpflin and Baer were his opponents. Fournier’s contributions to this debate were collected and reprinted under the title of Traités historiques et critiques sur l’origine de l’imprimerie. His principal work, however, was the Manuel typographique, which appeared in 2 vols. 8vo in 1764, the first volume treating of engraving and type-founding, the second of printing, with examples of different alphabets. It was the author’s design to complete the work in four volumes, but he did not live to execute it. He died at Paris on the 8th of October 1768.