The French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies in the East Indies.
Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it was chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It resulted from the fusion of three earlier companies, the 1660 Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar. The first Director General for the Company was De Faye, who was adjoined two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent 30 years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than 20 years in Japan, and Marcara Avanchintz, a trader from Ispahan, Persia.
Read more about French East India Company: History, Liquidation Scandal
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“The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.”
—Jules Mazarin (c. 1602–1661)
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—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
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—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
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—Joan Didion (b. 1934)