Michel Fourmont

Michel Fourmont (1690–1746) was a French antiquarian and classical scholar, Catholic priest and traveller. A member of the Académie des Inscriptions, he was one of the scholars sent by Louis XV to the eastern Mediterranean to collect inscriptions and manuscripts. He is now best remembered for having presented as genuine some forged inscriptions.

His father was Étienne Fourmont of Herblay in the Paris region, a surgeon and official; Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745) was his brother. He became a Catholic priest, and an orientalist pupil of his brother in Paris

Fourmont became a private tutor, and was given the Chair of Syriac at the Collège royal in 1720. He was admitted as an associate of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1724.

In 1728 Fourmont was sent by Louis XV to Constantinople and Greece, leaving in 1729 with François Sevin. They were under instructions from Jean-Paul Bignon to search out surviving Byzantine manuscripts, and the journey was supported by the Comte de Maurepas, for the greater glory of French scholarship.

While Sevin tried networking in Constantinople, Fourmont travelled in Greece and around the Aegean Sea. His first goal was manuscripts, and he built up good contacts in Athens. He collected hundreds of inscriptions, and ran a dig at ancient Sparta.

Fourmont confesses in a letter sent to Count Maurepas that he copied 1,500 ancient inscriptions (300 in Sparta) and brags about destroying them in order to avoid access to the information by any future travellers. In his letter Fourmont writes:

“For more than 30 days, 40 to 60 workers are, destroying the city of Sparta. I am still left with four towers to destroy. At the moment I am engaged with the destruction of the last ancient monuments of Sparta. You understand how happy I am. Mantinia, Stimfalia, Tegea, Nemea and Olympia are also worth annihilating. I have travelled extensively looking for ancient cities of this country and I have destroyed some of them. Amomg them are Trizina, Ermioni, Tiryns: half of the acropolis of Argos, Fliasia and Fenesia. For six weeks I have been busy with the total destruction of Sparta: destroying walls, temples and not leaving one stone on its place making the site unrecognisable in the future so that I can make it famous again.In this way I will give glory to my expeditions. Is that not something?”

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