Page:Dupleix and the Struggle for India by the European Nations.djvu/45

38 landing-place, could boast of some thirty or forty vessels, small and large, at sea, engaged in conveying the products of Bengal to Jeddo, to Mocha, to Basrah, to Surat, and to China. Before he left, the number had increased to seventy. To produce such results, Dupleix had opened communications with the chief places in the interior, even with Thibet. The resurrection of the settlement gave the greatest satisfaction in France, and it was the character of the man who had made possible such a revival, prosperous alike to the settlers and their masters, that prompted the Perpetual Company of the Indies to nominate its Intendant successor to M. Dumas at Pondichery.

Before Dupleix left Chandarnagar he married, April 17, 1741, a lady of great ability, and whose advice he always prized above the advice of others. This lady was a widow, the daughter of M. Albert, a surgeon of the Company at Pondichery. She had married M. Vincens, a member of the superior Council at that town, in 1719, and had borne him six children. M. Vincens died at Chandarnagar in 1739 or 1740, and Dupleix married the widow, as above stated, in April, 1741. I have before me a copy of the 'act of marriage.' It shows that the ceremony was performed with considerable ceremonial; that Dupleix, aged forty-three, was at the time President of the superior Council of Pondichery, and General Commandant of the French possessions in India; that his wife was thirty-three. Of Madame Dupleix I find it recorded that her wise counsels and her energy sustained her