Louis XIV's East India Company () was a

joint-stock company A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareho ...

founded in the

Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the Middle Ages, medieval and Early modern France, early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe from th ...

in August 1664 to engage in trade in India and other Asian lands, complementing the French West India Company () created three months before. It was one of several successive enterprises with similar names, a sequence started with Henry IV's first French East Indies Company in 1604 and continued with

Cardinal Richelieu Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religi ...

's Compagnie d'Orient in 1642. Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert to compete with the

English 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 trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South Asia and Southeast A ...

and

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

, it was chartered by King

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. Louis XIV's company became insolvent and was reorganized in 1685, and was again bankrupt in 1706. In 1719, what remained of it was acquired by John Law's Company, which in 1723 became the

French Indies Company The French Indies Company () was the main French overseas trading company during most of Louis XV's long reign in the 18th century. It emerged in March 1723 from the reorganization of John Law's Company following the termination of John Law's g ...

active during much of the 18th century.

Background

The seventeenth century saw several French efforts to trade with the East Indies, starting with the first French East Indies Company (1604-1614). They were influenced by the successful business ventures of the

. Between the 1630s and early 1660s, French efforts were smaller in scale, but they enjoyed some success. French

merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...

s traversed the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

, Red Sea, and the northwestern coast of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. These accomplishments, however, paled in comparison with those of

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

. France's Atlantic ports competed with each other. The commercial and financial expertise concentrated around the coastal regions of

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

and

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

History

At its foundation on , the new company absorbed the earlier operations of the Compagnie d'Orient as well as those of the Compagnie de Chine (est. 1660) and Compagnie de Madagascar (est. mid-1650s in Port-Louis, Morbihan). Its initial capital of the East India Company was 15 million livres, divided into shares of 1000 livres apiece. Louis XIV funded the first 3 million livres of investment, against which losses in the first 10 years were to be charged. Additional state support was provided in the form of subsidies indexed to trading volume, 20-percent subsidization of the investment expenditure to create overseas ports, and free military protection. The company was led by a central board of 12 directors () based in Paris, complemented by four in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

, and

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

. The company was granted a 50-year monopoly on French navigation and trade in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a region stretching from the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

eastward all the way to the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...

. In 1666, it was granted a base in

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

, where it permanently relocated its operations previously in

Le Havre Le Havre is a major port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy (administrative region), Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the Seine, river Seine on the English Channel, Channe ...

in 1670. Louis granted the company a concession in perpetuity for the island of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, as well as any other territories it might conquer. The underlying intent was to establish a French entrepôt in Madagascar to rival the Dutch colony of Batavia, but that plan was never realistic and the company gave up on it in 1668. Another motivation that interfered with the company's commercial activity was to promote the expansion of the Catholic faith, materialized in an early agreement made in 1665 by the company with the recently established Paris Foreign Missions Society by which the latter's missionaries were granted free travel on the company's ships. After abandoning the Madagascar project, the company endeavored to establish a foothold in the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, which had long awarded facilities to the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...

and other European ventures. Already on 4 September 1666, an embassy sent by Louis XIV had secured a mandate from Emperor

Aurangzeb Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...

that granted the company rights to trade in the major Mughal port of

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

, withs similar customs privileges as the Dutch and English. In 1673, the company established an outpost in

Pondicherry Pondicherry, officially known as Puducherry, is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of the Puducherry (union territory), Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of Indi ...

, then in 1688 in Chandernagor. The company's operations were heavily hampered by its bureaucratic governance and political interference. It was never able to send more than five ships a year, against 10 to 25 ships sent annually by its Dutch competitor. By the 1680s, the company went insolvent and they had little choice but to rent out its monopoly to a group of merchants. On , a decree of Louis XIV allowed private merchants to trade in the East on board the company's ships. In 1685, the company was drastically restructured, and its governance further nationalized as the directors were henceforth chosen by the king among the shareholders instead of being elected, and the regional chambers were abolished. Its activity further declined in the late 17th century, as Louis XIV's wars drained the kingdom of resources for any long-term projects. During that period and after its renewed bankruptcy in 1706, French commerce in Asia was mostly undertaken by private entrepreneurs, many of them from

Saint-Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo language, Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany (administrative region), Brittany. The Fortification, walled city on the English Channel coast had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth ...

Leadership

The first Director General for the Company was François de La Faye de La Martinie, who was adjoined by two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent 30 years working for the

including in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

from 1619 to 1641, and Marcara Avanchintz, an

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

trader from

Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

References

External links

Museum of the French East India Company at Lorient
(archived 25 April 2014)

– history of the last French East India Company on the site dedicated to its business lawyer Jean-Jacques Regis of Cambaceres.
French East Indies Company nowadaysFrenchbooksonindia.com
– an open access multilingual discovery tool with book data from 1531 to 2020, full-text ebooks from 1531 to 1937 and in-text search from ] {{Authority control French East India Company Colonial Indian companies 1664 establishments in France Companies established in 1664 Trading companies of France Trade monopolies French slave trade

Background

History

Leadership

See also

References

Further reading

External links