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CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER EIGHT
French India
French East India Company
French-issued "Gold Pagoda" for Southern India trade, cast in
Pondicherry 1705-1780.
French-issued rupee in the name of Mohammed Shah (1719-
1748) for Northern India trade, cast in Pondicherry. The first French expedition to India took place in the first half of the 16th century, during the reign of François I, when two ships were sent in search of India. However no body knows what happenned to them In 1515 two ships went to India, only one returning.
La Compagnie française des Indes orientales (French East India Company) was formed and in 1667 the French India Company sent out another expedition, under the command of François Caron which reached Surat in 1668 and established the first French factory in India. In 1669, Marcara succeeded in establishing another French factory at Masulipatam. In 1672, the Mount of Saint Thomas was taken but the French were driven out by the Dutch. Chandernagore (present-day Chandannagar) was established in 1673, with the permission of Nawab Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal. On February 4, 1673, Bellanger, a French officer, took up residence in the Danish Lodge in Pondichéry and the French Period of Pondichéry began. In 1674 François Martin, the first Governor, started to build Pondichéry and transformed it from a small fishing village into a flourishing port-town. In 1674, the French acquired Valikondapuram from the Sultan of Bijapur and thus the foundation of Pondichéry was laid. By 1720, the French lost their factories at Surat, Masulipatam and Bantam to the British. Soon after his arrival
in 1741, the most famous French Governor of Pondichéry and all French India, Joseph François Dupleix began to cherish the ambition of a French Empire in India. Dupleix's army controlled a large area between Hyderabad and Cape Comorin. But then Robert Clive arrived in India in 1744, who dashed the hopes of Dupleix to create a French Colonial India. After a defeat and failed peace talks, Dupleix was recalled to France in 1754.
The French left behind a Protestant legacy.
établissements français de l'Inde. These included Pudhucherry, Karikal and Yanam on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast, and Chandannagar in Bengal. In addition there were lodges (loges) located at Machilipatnam, Kozhikode and Surat, but they were merely nominal remnants of French factories.