Benoît Mottet de La Fontaine (4 July 1745 – 30 April 1820) was a French

officier de plume In the ancien Régime French Navy, officiers de plume (literally pen officers) were officers working in the administration of ports and colonies, as opposed to officiers d'épée, who were officers at sea. These were the two principal corps of th ...

and an administrator of

French India French India, formally the ( en, French Settlements in India), was a French colony comprising five geographically separated enclaves on the Indian Subcontinent that had initially been factories of the French East India Company. They were ''de ...

. He was the uncle of

Agathe de Rambaud Agathe de Rambaud was born in Versailles as Agathe-Rosalie Mottet and was baptized in the future cathedral Saint-Louis of Versailles, on 10 December 1764. She died in Aramon, in the ''département'' of Gard, on 19 October 1853. She was the offic ...

Biography

Mottet was born in the

château de Compiègne The Château de Compiègne is a French château, a royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon. Compiègne was one of three seats of royal government, the others being Versailles and Fontainebleau. It is located in Compiègne ...

. Mottet was sent by the French East India Company as commissioner to

Chandannagar Chandannagar french: Chandernagor ), also known by its former name Chandernagore and French name Chandernagor, is a city in the Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is headquarter of the Chandannagore subdivision and is part ...

to revitalize trade after the war.Francis Cyril Antony, ''Union Territory of Pondicherry'', p. 220 Benoît Mottet de la Fontaine was made the king's authorizing commissioner and president of the Superior Council of Pondicherry in 1789. He died at rue des Capucins,

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

. On his death he was buried in the French cemetery on rue Surcouf in Pondicherry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mottet De La Fontaine, Benoit 1745 births 1820 deaths French colonial governors and administrators