Professor of Arabic at the Collège royal de France (1751-77).

Scholar of Semitic languages and Chinese. Published several works on Middle Eastern and Chinese history. His magnum opus was an annotated edition of the Jesuit missionary Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla’s thirteen-volume Histoire générale de la Chine (Paris, 1777-85), published in cooperation with the abbé Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Alexis Grosier. Franklin purchased the work (1781).

Son of Antoine and Catherine (Fourmont) Le Roux. Raised by his uncle Étienne Fourmont, an Orientalist.