Page:History of the French in India.djvu/293

SUMMARY OF THE FRENCH SUCCESSES. 271 had become the ruler of Southern India, the lord over chap. thirty-five millions of people. Still greater was the , national exultation when it became known, through a 1750. brief despatch from M. de la Touche, how modestly MuzafFar Jang bore his triumph ; how deferentially he acknowledged his obligations to the French people , and how submissively he had announced his intention to do nothing until he should have communicated personally with the great ruler of French India. The fire of artillery, the chanting of Te Deums, illumina- tions, processions and durbars, announced all the joy which these occurrences inspired. Well, indeed, might the French in India feel a pride in their success. Not seventy-six years had elapsed since Francis Martin, at the head of sixty Frenchmen, had bought the plot of ground on which had since risen the city of Pondichery, and we find his successor in a position to give laws to thirty-five millions of people ! Though besieged and taken by the Dutch, though besieged but two years before by an immensely superior force of English, Pondichery had risen to see the decadence of one nation as a rival on Indian soil, and the compulsory inaction and loss of reputation — both indeed destined only to be temporary — of the other. The genius of the people had suited itself so well to the natural temperament of the children of the soil, that the French were regarded everywhere as friends ; the increase of their territory excited no jealousy. Their policy had been a policy of fidelity and trust. The intimacy of Francis Martin with Sher Khan Lodi had been continued by his successors to the family of Dost Ali. Neither the overthrow of that Nawwab, nor the captivity of his successor, had been able to shake it. To support that traditional alliance, M. Dumas had bade defiance to the threats of Raghuj' Bhonsla, and his, till then, irresistible Marathas ; Dupleix had, for seven years, fed the hopes of the im-