François Romain, also known by his

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

name Francis Rooman or his latinised name Franciscus Romanus (

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

22 March 1646 –

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

7 January 1737), was an engineer-architect who was professed as a lay brother

Dominican friar The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

. By commission of the

States General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States ...

, in 1683 he reconstructed parts of the ancient St. Servatius Bridge at

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, crossing the river

Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...

in nine arches. Successful in this undertaking, for which

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

was required, he was requested to come to Paris, where he resided in the monastery of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, and oversaw the completion of the

Pont Royal The Pont Royal is a bridge crossing the river Seine in Paris. It is the third oldest bridge in Paris, after the Pont Neuf and the Pont Marie. Location The Pont Royal links the Rive Droite, Right Bank by the Pavillon de Flore with the Rive Gauche ...

, which had been designed by

Jules Hardouin-Mansart Jules Hardouin-Mansart (; 16 April 1646 – 11 May 1708) was a French Baroque architect and builder whose major work included the Place des Victoires (1684–1690); Place Vendôme (1690); the domed chapel of Les Invalides (1690), and the Grand T ...

, with a central arch having a span of 23.5 meters. Record of payments to him beginning 1 April 1685, three weeks after the contract was awarded, showed that, contrary to the traditional account that he was not brought in until trouble had been encountered, he was the specialist in the project from the beginning. Dredging the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

's riverbed was required in order to establish sound footings, and caissons were employed for the

deep foundation A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural element ...

s here for the first time, half a century before Charles Labélye's use of them at

Westminster Bridge Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side. The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the H ...

, London. Construction proceeded without incident and was completed and the bridge formally opened, 13–14 June 1689. This further success procured him the office of inspector of bridges and embankments in Paris.Francesco Milizia, ''The Lives of Celebrated Architects, Ancient and Modern'', ''s.v.'' "François Romain" p. 304.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Romain, Francois French civil engineers 1646 births 1737 deaths Architects from Ghent 17th-century French architects 18th-century French architects Engineers from Ghent