Louis XIV's East India Company

Louis XIV's East India Company (French: Compagnie des Indes orientales) was a joint-stock company founded in the Kingdom of France in August 1664 to engage in trade in India and other Asian lands, complementing the French West India Company (French: Compagnie des Indes occidentales) created three months before. It was one of several successive enterprises with similar names, a sequence started with Henry IV's first French East Indies Company in 1604 and continued with Cardinal Richelieu's Compagnie d'Orient in 1642. Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert to compete with the English East India Company and Dutch East India Company,: 24  it was chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Louis XIV's company became insolvent and was reorganized in 1685, and was again bankrupt in 1706. In 1719, what remained of it was acquired by John Law's Company, which in 1723 became the French Indies Company active during much of the 18th century.

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