Abstract
France, like many of its European neighbours, embarked on a conquest of Asia and the Indian Ocean in the early modern period. Louis XIV would create an East India company much later than his Portuguese, Dutch and English neighbours. In 1664, Louis XIV asked his Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to put in place the necessary frameworks for France to catch up with this great Asian trade adventure.2 The newly created French East India Company chose Lorient, a sheltered harbour on the south coast of Brittany, as its base for building ships bound for India, stocking goods from the Indian Ocean and China, and holding its annual auctions.3 In the Indian Ocean, the French settled in two distinct areas: the Mascarene Islands of Bourbon, and Isle de France — known today as La Reunion and Mauritius — and India itself. The strategy for India was not to colonize a territory, but to occupy a few limited geographical areas — somewhat like confetti on the Indian coastal zone. Thus after complex negotiations with the Indian princes, five trading posts were created.4 Pondicherry, the largest of these, which had been a Dutch settlement prior to the arrival of the French in the 1690s, would become the French headquarters in India.5
Published Version
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