Fontenois, a town or village of the Austrian Netherlands, in the province of Hainault, and on the borders of Flanders; remarkable for a battle fought there between the allies and the French on the first of May 1745. The French were commanded by Marechal Saxe, and the allies by the Duke of Cumberland. The latter behaved with great bravery; but through the superiority of the numbers of the French army, and likewise the superior generalship of their commander, the allies were defeated with great slaughter. The British troops behaved with astonishing intrepidity, as their enemies themselves owned. It is even said, that the battle was lost through the cowardice of the Dutch, who failed in their attack on the village of Fontenois, on which the event of the day depended. E. Long. 2. 20. N. Lat. 50. 35. Fontenois, a village of France, in the duchy of Burgundy, remarkable for a bloody battle fought there in 841, between the Germans and the French, in which were killed above 100,000 men; and the Germans were defeated. E. Long. 3. 48. N. Lat. 47. 28. Fontevraud, or Fontevaux (Order of), in ecclesiastical history, a religious order instituted by Robert d'Arbrissel, about the latter end of the 11th century, and taken under the protection of the holy see by pope Pascal II. in 1106, confirmed by a bull in 1113, and invested by his successors with very extraordinary privileges. The chief of this order is a female, who is appointed to inspect both the monks and nuns. The order is divided into four provinces, which are those of France, Aquitaine, Auvergne, and Bretagne, in each of which they have several priories.