he had proved, was almost immediately after his departure occupied by his rivals, with the immense result which is one of the wonders of the present day.
A body of 2000 French troops had followed Godeheu to India, and had arrived at Pondichery a few days after he had installed himself there as Governor. When we reflect on the great things accomplished by Dupleix with a few hundreds, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that for the interests of France the one superfluous man of all the arrivals was Godeheu himself. Had there been no such arrival, no supersession of Dupleix, these men, in the absence of Clive in England, and of Lawrence, whose health was breaking, would have been sufficient to restore superiority to the French. The outbreak of the war in 1756 between France and England might even have prompted the attack, which Lally subsequently made, upon Madras itself.
It is just possible that this might have been, had the departure of Dupleix from Pondichery been delayed a few weeks longer. A fortnight after he had quitted the shores of India there arrived at that town a despatch from the Controller of Finances in France, M. de Machault, addressed to Dupleix, in which that administrator was referred to as Governor, whilst Godeheu was styled simply the Commissary of the Company, whose sole mission was to treat for peace. There is reason to believe that Machault, an honest man in a corrupt Court, had, very soon after
