FOUQUE 



3276 



FOURIER 



Baron de la Motte 



Fouque, German 



author 



extensive, including those of the 

 church with its tower, the former 

 being 380 ft. long, the chapter 

 house, the magnificent cloisters, 

 and other parts. They are perhaps 

 the most complete in England and, 

 with the possible exception of Tin- 

 tern, the most beautifully situated. 

 The abbey, a Cistercian house, was 

 a long time in building. Begun 

 about 1140, it was only completed 

 200 years later. The. monks came 

 from S. Mary's Abbey, York. The 

 house was dissolved by Henry 

 VIII and the ruins and lands were 

 sold. See Abbey ; Cloister, illus. 



Fouque, FKIEDRICH HEINRICH 

 KARL, BARON DE LA MOTTE (1777- 

 1843). German author. Born at 

 Brandenburg, 

 -**^>- ; Feb. 12, 1777, 

 of Huguenot 

 origin, he took 

 part as a 

 cavalry officer 

 in the Prus- 

 s i a n c a m- 

 paigns of 1794 

 and 1813, but 

 literature oc- 

 cupied most of 

 his time. For 

 a while he was the most popular of 

 German story-tellers, but his de- 

 pendence upon the supernatural 

 militated against a permanent 

 popularity. He is chiefly remem- 

 bered for his tale of Undine, 1811. 

 while Aslauga's Knight, and Sin- 

 tram and his Companions, which 

 have been translated into English, 

 still find readers. He died in Ber- 

 lin, Jan. 28, 1843. 



Fouquet OR FOUCQUET, NICO- 

 LAS, Marquis de Belle Isle, Vi- 

 comte de Melun et de Vaux (1615- 

 80). French 

 statesman. 

 Born of a noble 

 family, he held 

 various posts 

 in the parlia- 

 ment of Paris 

 while still a 

 youth, becom- 

 ing procura- 

 tor-general in Nicolas Fouquet, 

 1650. In 1653 French statesman 

 Mazarin made him superintendent 

 of finances, and Fouquet used his 

 position to make himself one of 

 the wealthiest men in France. He 

 worked to succeed Mazarin, 1661, 

 as the king's chief minister, but 

 Louis XIV, on Colbert's advice, 

 passed him over. 



Fouquet built himself a luxuri- 

 ous palace at Vaux, entertaining 

 lavishly and patronising the arts 

 and letters. But Louis, exas- 

 perated by his long t mismanage- 

 ment of the finances and his over- 

 weening ambition, had him ar- 

 rested at Nantes, Sept., 1661. His 



trial, 1661-64, ended in his im- 

 prisonment for life at Pignerol, 

 Piedmont, where he died, March 

 23, 1680. The theory that Fou- 

 quet was the Man in the Iron Mask 

 (q.v. ) has been proved untenable. 



Fouquier-Tinville, ANTOINE 

 QUENTIN (1747-95). French Revo- 

 lutionist. Born at Herouel, Aisne, 

 and trained for 

 the law, h e 

 came to Paris 

 and entered 

 the secret 



rlice in 1783. 

 violent 

 | democrat, h e 

 joined the ex- 

 tremist party 



A. Q. Fouquier- m tne Revo- 



Tinville, French lution, and was 

 Revolutionist appointed by 

 From a sketch Robespierre 



public prosecutor of the Revolu- 

 tionary Tribunal, 1793. Utterly 

 inhuman, he sent men and women 

 of all ages and parties to the guillo- 

 tine, Bailly, Danton, Robespierre, 

 and St. Just amongst them, but 

 in the reaction from the Reign of 

 Terror he himself was convicted 

 and guillotined on May 7, 1795. 



Four beries de Scapin, LES 

 (The Tricks of Scapin). Three-act 

 comedy by Moliere. Derived partly 

 from classical and partly from 

 Italian sources, its scene is laid in 

 Naples. Scapin, a servant, a char- 

 acter acted by the author, plays a 

 series of tricks on two fathers, so 

 that their sons may marry the two 

 girls with whom they have fallen 

 in love. The girls prove to be the 

 brides whom the duped fathers had 

 originally had in view. 



The play, which has been de- 

 scribed by Brander Matthews as a 

 Punch-and-Judy piece for grown- 

 ups, was first produced at the 

 Palais-Royal, Paris, May 24, 1671. 

 Otway wrote an English version, 

 The Cheats of Scapin, 1677. 



Fourcroy, ANTOINE FRANCOIS 

 (1755-1809). French chemist. Born 

 in Paris, June 15, 1755, he was 

 appointed in 1784 to the chair of 

 chemistry at the Jardin du Roi. 

 At the Revolution he became a 

 member of the committee of public 

 safety, and to his indifference is at- 

 tributed the execution of Lavoisier. 

 Among his discoveries are adipo- 

 cere, cholesterin, the double salts 

 of magnesium and ammonium, and 

 pure baryta. He died Dec. 16, 1809. 



Four Hundred, TYRANNY OF 

 THE. Oligarchy of nobles estab- 

 lished in Athens for four months 

 in 411 B.C. The prime author of the 

 change of government was the 

 exiled Alcibiades (q.v. ),who knew he 

 could not return to Athens so long 

 as a democratic government was in 

 power ; the chief conspirator was 





F. C. Fourier, 

 French Socialist 



Pisander. A reign of terror en- 

 sued and the Four Hundred made 

 peace overtures to Sparta. The 

 main Athenian army at Samos was 

 furious, and the people at home, 

 disgusted with the oppressive 

 measures and pro-Spartan sympa- 

 thies of the Four Hundred, took 

 matters into their own hands, and 

 with a surprisingly small amount 

 of bloodshed restored the demo- 

 cracy. See Greece : History. 



Fourier, FRANQOIS CHARLES 

 MARIE (1772-1837). French So- 

 cialist. Born at Besancon, April 7, 

 1772, the son 

 of a well-to-do 

 tradesman, 

 having lost his 

 inheritance in 

 business, h e 

 served two 

 years in the 

 Revolutionary 

 army, and 

 then became 

 a commercial 

 traveller. He set himself to evolve a 

 new social system in a series of 

 works, the chief of which are 

 Theory of the Four Movements, 

 1808, and The New Industrial 

 World, 1829. 



Fourier's ideas attracted little 

 attention during his lifetime, but 

 were much discussed in the U.S.A. 

 from 1840-50. Several communi- 

 ties, notably those of Brook Farm 

 (g.v.) and Red Bank, were estab- 

 lished to put them into practice, 

 but met with little success. 



Fourier's theory was that, man 

 being essentially a gregarious 

 animal, the population should be 

 redistributed in a number of new 

 social units, to which he gave the 

 name of phalanges. Each phalange 

 was to consist of 1,500 to 1,800 

 people, housed in a common build- 

 ing or phalanstere, with a square 

 league of land attached, was to be 

 industrially complete in itself and 

 self-governing. Each worker was 

 to receive a minimum wage, and 

 the surplus was to be distributed 

 thus : five-twelfths to labour, 

 three-twelfths to talent, four- 

 twelfths to capital. Fourier died 

 at Paris, Oct. 8, 1837. 



Fourier, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH 

 (1768-1830). French mathemati- 

 cian and physicist. Born at Aux- 

 erre, March 21, 

 1768, he took 

 an active part 

 in the Revolu- 

 tion in that dis- 

 trict. Later he 

 accompanied 

 Napoleon o n 

 his Egyptian 

 expedition, 

 J. Baptiste Fourier, i | wfl <, made 



French mathe- 

 matician governor o f 



