French East India Company

French East India Company, byname of (1664–1719) Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales (French: “French Company of the East Indies”), or (1719–20) Compagnie des Indes (“Company of the Indies”), or (1720–89) Compagnie Française des Indes (“French Company of the Indies”),  any of the French trading companies established in the 17th and 18th centuries to oversee French commerce with India, eastern Africa, and other territories of the Indian Ocean and the East Indies.

The Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales was established by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister to King Louis XIV. It had difficulty gaining the financial support of French merchants, and Colbert is thought to have pressured many of them to join. He persuaded François Charpentier of the French Academy to write a glowing advertisement about the benefits of joining the company, asking why the French should purchase gold, pepper, cinnamon, and cotton from foreign merchants. Louis XIV wrote to 119 towns, ordering merchants to gather and discuss subscribing to the company, but many refused. By 1668 the king himself was the biggest investor, and the company was to remain under his control.

In constant competition with the already-established Dutch East Indies Company, the French company mounted expensive expeditions that were often harassed and even confiscated by the Dutch. The French East India Company flourished briefly from 1670 to 1675; but by 1680 little money had been made, and many ships were in need of repair.

In 1719 the Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales was absorbed by the short-lived Compagnie des Indes. This company became entangled in the disastrous financial schemes of the fiscal administrator John Law, and so it suffered severely in the ensuing French economic crash of 1720. The company was then reorganized under the name Compagnie Française des Indes.

The revived company obtained the colonies of Mauritius (Île de France) in 1721 and Mahé in Malabar (India) in 1724. By 1740 the value of its trade with India was half that of the British East India Company.

The ablest leader of the company, Joseph-François Dupleix, was appointed the governor-general of French India in 1742. In 1746 he captured Madras but failed to take the neighbouring British fort of St. David. Dupleix allied himself with local Indian powers, but the British supported rival Indian groups, and a private war between the two companies broke out in 1751. After being recalled to Paris in 1754, Dupleix unsuccessfully sued the company for money that he had spent on its behalf in India.

During the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) between France and England, the French were defeated, and Pondicherry, the capital of French India, was captured in 1761. Because the French economy saw more profit from trade in the West Indies, the French East India Company lacked government support. Its monopoly over French trade with India was ended in 1769, and thereafter the company languished until its disappearance during the French Revolution in 1789.