Page:History of the French in India.djvu/88

 66 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. chap, hesitating regarding the attack of the place, that we ' _, now find him. 1725. The plan which La Bourdonnais submitted to the commodore, was to land the troops on a raft of his own designing, in order of battle, under cover of the fire of the squadron. He pressed also that he might be per- mitted to lead them himself. M. de Pardaillan, struck with the ingenuity of the plan, and with the energy and quickness of decision evinced by the young officer, gave his consent to the scheme. It was carried out almost instantly. The raft was made, the troops were placed upon it, and, piloted by La Bourdonnais, were landed, with dry feet and almost in order of battle, at the foot of the high ground. This difficulty being surmounted, the place was stormed. As an acknowledgment of the skill and enterprise of his young captain, the com- modore, by a slight alteration of the letters which went to form the name of the captured town, transformed it from the Indian Maihi or Mahi into the French Mahe — the first name of La Bourdonnais. This new name not only took root, but it gradually effaced the recol- lection that the town had ever borne another.* The order of events, as they occurred at Pondichery, will not allow us to proceed for the present with the career of La Bourdonnais. Him, we shall meet again, a little later on the scene. Meanwhile it will be neces- sary to advert to the proceedings of one whose influence upon French India was destined to be even more direct, more commanding, more enduring ; — whose brilliant genius all but completed the work which Francis Martin had begun ; — who was indebted for all that he did ac- complish to his own unassisted energies ; who owed his failure to carry through all his high- soaring designs Chronology of Mr. C. P. Brown, late to Mr. Mill, aud equally so to the Madras C. S., for the information re- authors of the Indian Gazetteers." garding the origin of the name
 * We are indebted to the Carnatic " Mahe." It was evidently unknown