Page:Dupleix and the Struggle for India by the European Nations.djvu/14

 DUPLEIX

CHAPTER I

Introductory

'The immense riches,' wrote the Abbé Guyon in 1774, 'which the Portuguese, the English, and the Dutch had drawn from the East Indies, invited the French to follow them in those remote and unknown countries, in order to partake of the advantages of which commerce was there productive.' For many years, indeed, the 'invitation,' as the Abbé calls it, had dangled before the French people. For many years they had failed successfully to respond to it. In vain had Francis I in 1537 and 1543, and Henry III in 1578, exhorted their subjects to make long voyages. As these exhortations were unaccompanied by any promise of a State subsidy, as had been similar offers in the three countries which preceded France in the race for the commerce of the East, they produced no effect whatever. Nor was it till 1615 that a Company, which four years previously had obtained from Louis XIII letters patent for the monopoly of the Eastern trade for twelve years, stimulated by two