BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

     Georges Fournier, born in Caen on August 31, 1595, was the son of Claude Fournier, from Burgundy, a professor of law at the University of Caen.  Georges went to school in Caen, at the collège of Le Mont which had recently been turned over to the Jesuits.  Since that collège had no upper-level classes, he was sent to the renowned collège at La Flèche to study philosophy.  Those years with the Jesuits, decisive for his education, aroused in this very young man an ardent desire to enter the Society.  But his father, who believed that a legal career was imperative for him, was categorically opposed to this project.  Georges Fournier applied himself to the law for a short while, but gave it up when he entered the novitiate in the Province Gallo-Belge in Tournai on October 1, 1617, where he stayed for one year.  He pursued his studies of higher humanities at the collège in Lille in the Province de France.  As the rule of the Society and the official plan for Jesuit education (Ratio studiorum) demanded, he occupied the post of master of grammar at the collège d'Eu from 1620 to 1624.  He then began his three years of theological studies at the collège of La Flèche, finishing at the collège at Bourges in 1627.  After his third year of probation and one year as master in Rouen, he returned to La Flèche from 1628 to 1633 to teach mathematics there.  From 1633 to 1636, he was a mathematics professor in Dieppe.  Indeed, from 1633 onwards he had been in the service of Henri d'Escoubleau de Sourdis (1593-1645), the archbishop of Bordeaux and head of the king's council in the navy, Fournier fought with this prelate on the Corail and the Saint-Louis against Spain in 1638, in 1640 and in 1641.  Fournier was one of the first chaplains of the Royal Navy, and one of the first Jesuits to be really interested in the training of naval officers.  From 1639 to 1644, he taught mathematics in Hesdin.  But in 1641 when Sourdis fell out of favour, he went definitively back to the collège at Hesdin, then to the one at La Flèche.  Then, as much for naval officers as for the young people who intended to have a career in the military, he wrote works of rare pedagogical quality, all published at the Parisian shop of the Hénaults.  His famous Hydrographie, meant for naval officers, was printed in 1642, and won him an invitation to the collège in Clermont to observe the lunar eclipse on April 13, 1642.  Next in 1644 a Latin edition of Euclid's Élements came out, reorganized and simplified for young people.  In 1645-1646 Fournier was appointed dean of studies and discipline of the collège at Caen, then in 1648-1649 at the collège at Orléans.  At that time he published for the public the first volume of his Geographica orbis noticia per littora maris (1648) and the first edition of the Traité des fortifications ou architecture militaire, tiré des places les plus estimées de ce temps (1649).  These books bear witness to his concern for an intelligent transmission of the mathematical knowledge necessary for young people who study at a collège.  Father Fournier died at La Flèche on April 13, 1652, leaving some manuscripts.  One of them, transcribed by the mysterious "L.M.S.", Asiae nova descriptio in qua praeter Provinciarum situs et populorum mores mira deleguntur et hactenus inedita would be published in 1656 at the presses of Mabre Cramoisy.  They are reading notes which show an exemplary method of critical compilation.
One must keep in mind that the Jesuits had adapted their teaching remarkably well to meet the needs of pupils who studied at their collèges.  At the beginning of the 17^th century Aristotle and Euclid constituted the base of the ratio studiorum, the official plan of Jesuit studies.  Along with pure mathematics (arithmetic, geometry) "mixed mathematics" (today we would say "applied mathematics") were taught, which included such diverse disciplines as astronomy, optics, perspective, mechanics, hydraulics, music, fortifications, geography and chronology.  At the beginning of the 17^th century, the idea began to develop that classical culture would not be sufficient to create a good soldier (society's model at that time).  Thus, in the second quarter of the century, the Jesuits modified the programs of the mathematics class to allow their pupils to acquire this sort of knowledge and be able to apply it.
This adaptation to the needs of an upwardly-mobile bourgeoisie, living like nobles, also led to a linguistic mutation, encouraged by Richelieu, which became widespread during Louis XIV's reign: French replaced Latin.  Father Fournier's work, written in Franch for youth preparing themselves to become soldiers fits into this context.  It purports to be a practical tool, a compendium, in which the young future soldier will acquire the necessary basic information in the art of fortification.  Fortier isn't satisfied to instill the principles necessary for the comprehension of systems of fortification gradually, to know how to calculate them and "to discourse" upon their relevance.  He wants to train men of integrity, valiant and brave.  Thus let us not be surprised to see forceful maxims of a moral nature in the "Preface containing much knowledge necessary to all who are professional soldiers".  Fournier devoted three chapters to duels, to the confusion they bring about.  Royal edicts can certainly find a remedy for it, but the only true remedy is to stop boasting about it!  Meant to warn the youth of France, this preface appears neither in the Spanish-language edition printed at the Hénault presses in 1649, nor in the foreign editions published after 1667 in Amsterdam, Mainz or Leipzig.
The Traité des fortifications was part of the collection of Jean Hénault, bookseller, who went back to it eight times from 1648 to 1668 and had it translated into Spanish in 1649.  This relative success led some booksellers in Amsterdam and Mainz to translate it into Flemish and German, indeed into Latin and even to take the Franch version and make counterfeit plates in order to reach their clientele.  There were even two bilingual German-French editions in Leipzig (1670, 1686) and one in Mainz in 1688.  In all we have counted twenty-five editions of the book, in all languages between 1648 and 1697.  From 1688 on, they were produced outside of France and the last among them saw the light of day at the end of the 1680s.  Father Fournier's treatise was no longer useful then; it was replaced by the 1684 edition of de L’ecole de Mars by Alain Manesson-Mallet (1630-1706), a complete work, perfectly up to date and considerably enlarged since the first edition came out in 1671.

C. Bousquet-Bressolier (École pratique des hautes études, Paris) – 2009

Critical bibliography

W. Audenaert, Prosopographia iesuitica Belgia antiqua, Leuven-Heverlee, College S. J., 1, 2000, p. 356.

C. Bousquet-Bressolier, "Pédagogie de l’image jésuite: de l’image emblématique aux emblemata mathématiques", C. Bousquet-Bressolier (ed.), François de Dainville, un géographe pionnier de l’histoire de la cartographie et de l’éducation, Collection Études et rencontres de l’École des Chartes 15, 2004, Paris, École des Chartes, pp. 143-166.

C. Chabaud-Arnault, "Un aumônier de la flotte sous le règne de Louis XIII", L’université catholique (Lyon), 11, 1892, pp. 375-391.

F. de Dainville, La Géographie des humanistes, Bordeaux, Beauchesne, 1940, pp. 257-276.

F. de Dainville, "L’enseignement des mathématiques dans les collèges jésuites de France au XVI^e et XVIII^e siècle (II)", Revue d’histoire des sciences, 1954, 7, 2, pp. 109-123.

P. Delattre, Mélanges biographiques, Archives jésuites de la Province de France, Vanves, Mss. SP1, 1, f° 122 (personal file Georges Fournier: note by A. Ledoux).

É. d’Orgeix, "Alain Manesson Mallet: portrait d’un ingénieur militaire dans le sillage de Vauban", Bulletin du comité français de cartographie, 195, mars 2008, pp. 67-74.

M. Jähns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften, vornehmlich in Deutschland, Munich/Leipzig, R. Oldenbourg, 2, 1890 (reprint: New York, 1966).

K. Jordan, Bibliographie zur Geschichte des Festungsbaues von den Anfängen bis 1914, Marburg, Deutschen Gesellschaft für Festungsforschung e. V., 2003.

L. Marini, Biblioteca istorico critica di fortificazione permanente, Rome, Mariano de Romanis e Figli, 1810 (reprint: Bologna, Libreria Antiquaria Bringenti, 1971).

M. D. Pollak, Military Architecture Cartography and the Representation of the Early Modern European City: A Checklist of Treatises on Fortification in the Newberry Library, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1992, n° 23.

M. Prevot, R. d’Amat & H. Tribout de Morembert, Dictionnaire de biographie française, Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 14, 1979, col. 833-835.

Ratio Studiorum. Plan raisonné et institutions dans la Compagnie de Jésus, bilingual edition presented by A. Demoustier and D. Julia, translated by L. Albrieux and D. Pralon-Julia, annotated by M.-M. Compère, Paris, Belin, 1997.

C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, Brussels/Paris, Schepens/Picard, 1892, 3, col. 909-912.