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 42 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OET11E INDIES. chap, fortunate for Ponclichery, neglected and impoverished, that she was able, for the fourteen years that followed 1714. the death of Martin, to drag on a feeble existence, hoping for better times. There was little in that inter- val to call for the remark of the historian. The interest of the period is rather concentrated in the change that took place in the fortunes of the parent Company, and which, at the expiration of the fourteen years we have alluded to, enabled the rulers of Ponclichery to make a real start in the race for wealth and prosperity. We propose therefore to return to the affairs of the Com- pany in Europe. That Company had in 1714 applied, as we have already stated, for a renewal of the privileges which would lapse in that year. The state of its affairs was well known to the mercantile world of France as well as to the Ministers, and a strong opinion was expressed against the policy of granting to the Company privileges of which it could only make use by transferring them to others. But notwithstanding public opinion, in those days feebly expressed, the Directors had sufficient in- terest to carry their point. On September 29, 1714, a Royal edict was issued, directing the continuance to the Company for ten years of all its privileges, dating from January 1, 1715, with the sole proviso, that thence- forth, one-tenth of the product of the captures made by the Company's vessels beyond the Line should revert to the Great Admiral of France. It appeared then that for another ten years the affairs of French India were doomed to languish, and perhaps even to perish of atrophy. But on September 1, 1715, an event occurred which changed for a time the current of affairs in France and her dependencies. On that day Louis XIV. died, leaving behind him a public debt of 2,412,000,000 francs, and the revenue mortgaged for years to come. Misery and disease reigned amongst the population, commerce and industry were in an