An Antique Word Form?

[B. H. Rucker]

I am trying to translate an eighteenth century document, handwritten in French.  I am puzzled by a word that appears to be "foursse".  The double-esses are written as two "f's" in the cursive custom of the period.

 

The sentence seems to be describing the location or some other attribute of a parish cemetery:  "the body was buried in the cemetery de le foursse"

 

I have found many words in this document using the "ff" format that I can now find in a modern French dictionary spelled with a singe "s".

 

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what "foursse" might mean?

[Camille]

It might mean "fosse" because it fits with the context, but I know absolutely nothing about old French so it is just a guess...

[Neil Coffey]

"fosse" was certainly in existence a few centuries ago: in fact, it has been in use in French ever since it evolved from Latin. On the other hand, it seems surprising that it would look like an extra "rs" had slipped in.

 

I don't know if there's any chance of uploading a scan of the original?

[B. H. Rucker]

Hopefully, I have attached a sample of the writing.

[Neil Coffey]

I'm not sure, but could it be "Cimetière de la feuille"? Although the first vowel does look like an "o", the writer doesn't close the loop on their "e's", so it seems like it could be that they're writing "feuille" (which also has the advantage of actually being a French word).

[B. H. Rucker]

I do like the fact that feuille is actually a word, but I don't think that is correct either.   From reading a lot of his handwriting, I'm pretty sure those are double "s" (as in "Miffouri" , our state).   The final "e" and the "r" are problematic.

 

I'm still intrigued with "fosse" in its sense of a pit or mass grave.  Neither of those is correct for the context of the burial he's describing, but the general connection with the subject of burial makes me want to believe "fosse" is in the right neighborhood.

 

Thank you for thinking about this for me.

[Neil Coffey]

Yes, "fosse" makes sense semantically, but unfortunately there really are some extra letters here that it's hard to justify (unfortunately, I really don't think the spelling of "fosse" has changed/had variants in the last few centuries).