The Compagnie de Chine was a French

trading company Trading companies are businesses working with different kinds of products which are sold for consumer, business, or government purposes. Trading companies buy a specialized range of products, maintain a stock or a shop, and deliver products to custo ...

established in 1660 by the Catholic society

Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement The Company of the Blessed Sacrament (french: Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement), also sometimes referred to as the Company of the Most Blessed Sacrament, was a French Catholic secret society which included among its members many Catholic notables of the ...

, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia (initially Bishops

François Pallu François Pallu, MEP (1626–1684) was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia. Life Born in Tours, now in Indre-et-Loire, Pallu was recruited by Alexander de Rhodes, SJ, ...

Pierre Lambert de la Motte Pierre Lambert de la Motte, MEP (16 January 1624 – 15 January 1679) was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia. Biography Lambert de la Motte was born 16 January 1624 in ...

and

Ignace Cotolendi Ignace Cotolendi, MEP (23 March 1630 – 16 August 1662) was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia. Life Born in Brignoles, Var Var or VAR may refer to: Places * Var ...

of the newly founded

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons de ...

). The company was modelled on the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. A ship was built in the Netherlands by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched. The only remaining solution for the missionaries was to travel on land, since Portugal would have refused to take non-''

Padroado The ''Padroado'' (, "patronage") was an arrangement between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Portugal and later the Portuguese Republic, through a series of concordats by which the Holy See delegated the administration of the local churches and gr ...

'' missionaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries. In 1664, the China Company would be fused by

Jean-Baptiste Colbert Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...

with the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar into the Compagnie des Indes Orientales. A second Compagnie de Chine was established in 1698. The Compagnie de Chine was reactivated in 1723.''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'' by

Theodore Besterman Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel Besterman (22 November 1904 – 10 November 1976) was a Polish-born British psychical researcher, bibliographer, biographer, and translator. In 1945 he became the first editor of the ''Journal of Documentation''. From ...

, p.5

/ref>

Notes

References

*Mantienne, Frédéric 1999 ''Monseigneur Pigneau de Béhaine'' Eglises d'Asie, Série Histoire, *''Missions étrangères de Paris. 350 ans au service du Christ'' 2008 Editeurs Malesherbes Publications, Paris {{ISBN, 978-2-916828-10-7 Trading companies 1660 establishments in France French colonial empire

See also

Notes

References