Charles Louis de Fourcroy was a French mathematician, scholar and director of fortifications, known from his 1782 treatise, entitled "Essai d’une table poléométrique"
Biography
De Fourcroy was born in the French countryside. He is the author of Essai d'une table poléométrique, a treatise on engineering and civil construction, published in 1782, which is remarkable for its period in its use of graphs to list the achievements of civil engineers of bridges and roads from 1740 to 1780 and its cross-sectional and mathematical analysis of the growth of urban areas. He was awarded the title Chevalier de laLégion d'honneur by Napoleon and the Arch Chancellor of France, the Prince in 1810, while Consul in Cologne. He was also awarded a crest with three argent crescents upon a blue background, intersected by a golden peak above the symbol of the Légion d'honneur on a gules background. The Harrow School Archives have the grant of arms to the Chevalier, Charles de Fourcroy, signed by Napoleon.
Work
''Essai d’une table poléométrique,'' 1782
In 1782 De Fourcroy published his "Essai d'une Table Poléométrique, ou amusement d'un Amateur de Plans fur les grandeurs de quelques Villes; Avec une carte, ou Tableau qui offre la comparaison de ces Villes par un même échelle." This book gives an analysis of the urban growth of European cities, which are graphically compared in a diagram, called Table Poléométrique or Poleometric Table. In his work De Fourcroy explained: A 1782 review of this work by Élie Catherine Fréron mentioned, that the Table Poléométrique explained in the work is plausible for at least 230 cities, foreign and domestic. More recently Jacques Bertin in his Semiology of Graphics further explained the work, which was first published anonymously. In the French National library the work is still listed by its publisher. Bertin wrote De Fourcroy's map is similar to the comparison diagram the German economist and statistician August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome published in 1785, entitled "Groessen Karte von Europa." This map made a comparison of European states, instead of a comparison of cities in the Poleometric Table. Palsky concluded, that "the Table established by Fourcroy signals a fundamental moment in the evolution of the graphical method. We see the passage to the abstract, to fictitious features. By these proportional triangles, the author constructs an image that does not return/relate to its original existence."
