Page:History of the French in India.djvu/26

 4 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. chap. . x - l( as were cherished by many of the actors in this real ', drama. It is yet another peculiarity of this eventful history that the actors in it did not only dare to build up vast plans ; they brought them to the very brink of success ; they failed, too, only to let those plans fall into the lap of another and a rival nation, which, bewildered by their vastness, long refused to entertain them, and only consented at last, when the force of events had convinced them that there was no middle course between the prosecution of those plans and their own destruction. It is strange that this story, with all its wonders, has almost faded away from the tablets of history. There exists, indeed, a record, published in the last century, of the facts connected with the rise and progress of the French East India Company, but since its appearance a flood of light has been shed upon events which were then dark and mysterious. Yet even this record has, until very recently, been almost a sealed book. Glimpses of the deeds accomplished by the French on Indian soil are occasionally to be found in old accounts of famous voyages, in forgotten French histories of India, and more recently in those English histories which are devoted to the glorification of the triumphs of our own countrymen. Occasionally, too, in some old biographic memoir, or in the notes to some graver history, we meet with curious accounts of men, who, when their prospects as a nation had been annihilated, strove, and strove earnestly in the service of native princes, to prevent the development of the fortunes of their successful rivals. We have sometimes wondered why a more modern his- tory of this eventful episode has never been undertaken by the French. It cannot be because a brilliant career culminated in disaster. It was a disaster which at all events reflected no discredit on the soldiers of France. What discredit there was is directly to be imputed to the effete administration of the most effete and degraded