François Fidèle Ripaud de Montaudevert (1755 – 1814) was a French privateer best known for bringing a group of volunteers from Isle de France to aid

Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (, , ''Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu''; 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799) commonly referred to as Sher-e-Mysore or "Tiger of Mysore", was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery ...

of the

Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a geopolitical realm in southern India founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Mysore and prevailed until 1950. The territorial boundaries and the form of government transmuted substantially ...

in his conflicts with the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

Biography

François Ripaud was born in Saffré, northwestern France, in a middle-class family. He enrolled as a sailor at aged 11, on the ''Le Palmier''. In 1770, he reached Mauritius, where he married in 1784. He had two children. In 1797, he sailed from Mauritius to

Mangalore Mangaluru (), formerly called Mangalore ( ), is a major industrial port city in the Indian state of Karnataka and on the west coast of India. It is located between the Laccadive Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bengaluru, the st ...

and sought a meeting with Tipu Sultan, in which he promised to raise a large force in Mauritius for the Sultan. In 1798, Ripaud came back to Mauritius with two envoys from Tipu Sultan. Anne Joseph Hippolyte de Maurès, Governor-General of Île de France (Mauritius) made a proclamation, on 29 January 1798, seeking volunteers for an "expedition to travel to Mysore to assist Tipu in his resistance to British encroachment in south India". Approximately 100 men were recruited, and they left for Mangalore on the French frigate ''La Preneuse'' on 7 March 1798. The French involvement provided Governor-General Richard Wellesley with the pretext to invade Mysore, which culminated in the death of Tipu in May 1799.

References

Bibliography

* ''À la mer, en guerre''. Jean Feildel, 1965. * ''Ces Hommes de la Mer''. Marcelle Lagesse, IPC Edition, . * ''Voyages, aventures et combats'', Chapter 14. Louis Garneray, Paris,

Éditions Phébus The éditions Phébus is a French publishing house established in 1976 by Jean-Pierre Sicre and taken over in 2003 by the . Catalogue Phébus publishes a catalog of French and foreign literature that is both contemporary (Julie Otsuka, Elif Sh ...

, 1984 ; Rééd. Payot, 1991. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ripaud, Francois 1755 births 1814 deaths French privateers