The Compagnie de Chine was a French
trading company established in 1660 by the Catholic society
Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia (initially Bishops
François Pallu,
Pierre Lambert de la Motte and
Ignace Cotolendi of the newly founded
Paris Foreign Missions Society
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons de ...
). The company was modelled on the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock c ...
.
A ship was built in the Netherlands by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched. The only remaining solution for the missionaries was to travel on land, since Portugal would have refused to take non-''
Padroado'' missionaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries.
In 1664, the China Company would be fused by
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...
with the
Compagnie d'Orient and
Compagnie de Madagascar into the
Compagnie des Indes Orientales.
A second Compagnie de Chine was established in 1698.
The Compagnie de Chine was reactivated in 1723.
[''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'' by Theodore Besterman, p.5]
/ref>
See also
* List of trading companies
Notes
References
*Mantienne, Frédéric 1999 ''Monseigneur Pigneau de Béhaine'' Eglises d'Asie, Série Histoire,
*''Missions étrangères de Paris. 350 ans au service du Christ'' 2008 Editeurs Malesherbes Publications, Paris {{ISBN, 978-2-916828-10-7
Trading companies
1660 establishments in France
French colonial empire