Page:History of the French in India.djvu/284

 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. tha power, had been forced, in 1677, to come to an understanding with its commander to effect its reduc- tion, and Zulfikar Khan, the general of Aurangzeb, had brought about the same result by means of a blockade of the strictest nature. The belief in its impregnability made it always the refuge of defeated armies, and the scattered parties of Muhammad Ali's force, to the number of 10,000 or 12,000 men, had fled to it after the battle on the Panar for the protection which it was deemed so well able to offer. Against this — the strongest of all the fortresses of the Karnatik — Dupleix directed d'Auteuil to send a detachment with all pos- sible speed, indicating at the same time Bussy as the commandant of whom he would approve for such a service. This is not the first time that we have met with this officer. He it was, it will be recollected, who, when the French troops had twice recoiled before the intrenchments thrown up by Anwaru-dm at Ambur, when their commandant, d'Auteuil, had been struck down, rallied the repulsed infantry, and led them, the third time, victoriously to the charge. But little is known of his early childhood — a strange circumstance when it is recollected that he occupies a principal figure, in the estimation of some the foremost figure, in the history of the French in India. This much, however, is ascertained, that he was born in 1718, at Bucj, near Soissons : that he had lost bis father at an early age, and inheriting little beyond his pedigree,* he had come out to the Isle of France at the time that La Bourdon- nais was governor, and had formed one of the expedition led by that famous admiral to India in 1746. When La Bourdonnais returned to Europe at the end of that year, de Bussy remained behind as an officer of the Pon- dichery army. Here he found himself constantly in contact with Dupleix, and, in their frequent meetings, he had not been less struck by the large views and
 * He was named Charles-Joseph Patissier, Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau.