At its foundation on , 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. 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. 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. where it permanently relocated its operations previously in
Le Havre in 1670. 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, 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. 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, with similar customs privileges as the Dutch and English. In 1673, the company established an outpost in
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. By the 1680s, the company went insolvent and they had little choice but to rent out its monopoly to a group of merchants. On , 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. 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. ==Leadership==