Editing Louis XIV's East India Company (section)

==History==

At its foundation on {{date|1664-8-27}},<ref name=archive/> the new company absorbed the earlier operations of the Compagnie d'Orient as well as those of the [[Compagnie de Chine (1660-1664)|Compagnie de Chine]] (est. 1660) and [[Compagnie de Madagascar]] (est. mid-1650s in [[Port-Louis, Morbihan]]).<ref>{{cite web |website=CRW Flags |title=Presentation of Port-Louis (Municipality, Morbihan, France) |url=https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr-56-pl.html |date={{date|2004-7-8}} |author=Ivan Sache}}</ref> Its initial capital of the East India Company was 15 million livres, divided into shares of 1000 livres apiece. Louis XIV funded the first 3 million livres of investment, against which losses in the first 10 years were to be charged.<ref name="booneshares.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.booneshares.com/Indes.htm|title=The Compagnie des Indes|year=2001|access-date=2008-03-06|author=Shakespeare, Howard |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071225184121/http://www.booneshares.com/Indes.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2007-12-25}}</ref> Additional state support was provided in the form of subsidies indexed to trading volume, 20-percent subsidization of the investment expenditure to create overseas ports, and free military protection.<ref name=archive/> The company was led by a central board of 12 directors ({{langx|fr|chambre générale}}) based in Paris, complemented by four {{lang|fr|chambres particulières de province}} in [[Bordeaux]], [[Lyon]], [[Nantes]], and [[Rouen]].<ref name=agorha>{{cite web |website=Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art |date={{date|2022-3-21}} |url=https://agorha.inha.fr/detail/717 |title=Compagnie française des Indes orientales |author=Stéphane Castelluccio}}</ref>

The company was granted a 50-year monopoly on French navigation and trade in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a region stretching from the [[Cape of Good Hope]] eastward all the way to the [[Strait of Magellan]].<ref name=archive/> In 1666, it was granted a base in [[Lorient]],<ref name="Chaumeil P68">{{cite journal|last=Chaumeil|first=Louis|title=Abrégé d'histoire de Lorient de la fondation (1666) à nos jours (1939)|journal=Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest|volume=46|issue=1|year=1939|page=68|language=fr|doi=10.3406/abpo.1939.1788}}</ref> where it permanently relocated its operations previously in [[Le Havre]] in 1670.<ref>{{cite web |website=Patrimoine et Archives du Morbihan |access-date={{date|2025-2-22}} |url=https://patrimoines-archives.morbihan.fr/decouvrir/instants-dhistoire/les-millesimes-du-patrimoine/la-compagnie-des-indes |title=La Compagnie des Indes}}</ref>

Louis granted the company a concession in perpetuity for the island of [[Madagascar]], as well as any other territories it might conquer. The underlying intent was to establish a French entrepôt in Madagascar to rival the Dutch colony of Batavia,{{R|Mole|p=34–35}} but that plan was never realistic and the company gave up on it in 1668. Another motivation that interfered with the company's commercial activity was to promote the expansion of the Catholic faith, materialized in an early agreement made in 1665 by the company with the recently established [[Paris Foreign Missions Society]] by which the latter's missionaries were granted free travel on the company's ships.<ref name=archive/>

After abandoning the Madagascar project, the company endeavored to establish a foothold in the [[Mughal Empire]], which had long awarded facilities to the [[Portuguese Empire]] and other European ventures. Already on 4 September 1666, an embassy sent by Louis XIV had secured a mandate from Emperor [[Aurangzeb]] that granted the company rights to trade in the major Mughal port of [[Surat]],{{R|Mole|p=35}} withs similar customs privileges as the Dutch and English. In 1673, the company established an outpost in [[Puducherry (city)|Pondicherry]], then in 1688 in [[Chandernagor]]. 

The company's operations were heavily hampered by its bureaucratic governance and political interference. It was never able to send more than five ships a year, against 10 to 25 ships sent annually by its Dutch competitor.<ref name=agorha/> By the 1680s, the company went insolvent and they had little choice but to rent out its monopoly to a group of merchants.{{R|Mole|p=14}} On {{date|1682-1-6}}, a decree of Louis XIV allowed private merchants to trade in the East on board the company's ships. In 1685, the company was drastically restructured, and its governance further nationalized as the directors were henceforth chosen by the king among the shareholders instead of being elected, and the regional chambers were abolished.<ref name=agorha/> Its activity further declined in the late 17th century, as Louis XIV's wars drained the kingdom of resources for any long-term projects. During that period and after its renewed bankruptcy in 1706, French commerce in Asia was mostly undertaken by private entrepreneurs, many of them from [[Saint-Malo]].<ref name=archive/>