Joseph Dupleix, born of a Gascon family, the son of the controller-general of Hainant, had settled in India from his youth. He had married there, and had learned to know all the tortuous policy of the Indian princes, whose language his wife, the princess Jeanne, as she was called, knew, and whose secrets she divined. Not over-scrupulous, ambitious and daring for his country's sake even more than his own, he had foreseen and prosecuted this European empire of India which was soon to fall into more fortunate if not more clever hands. In 1748 he had defended Pondicherry against Admiral Boscawen. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, while changing the name of the belligerents, had not put an end to hostilities. The two commercial companies, the French and the English, had continued the war hitherto sustained in the name of their sovereigns. Dupleix entered more and more into the internal intrigues of India. In the Dekhan he had supported Murzapha Jung against Nazir Jung, and in the Carnatic, Tchunda Sahib against Anaverdy Khan. His adroit patronage had brought good fortune to his proteges. In their solicitous gratitude they had conceded vast territories to France. A third of India was already obedient to Dupleix, and the Great Mogul, the invisible sovereign who silently granted degrees of investiture, had just recognized his supremacy. Dupleix thought that he had arrived at the goal of all his dreams. He had taken no account of the improvident weakness of the French government. {244} Already Dupleix's success had alarmed King Louis XV. and his ministers, who were more uneasy in respect of new embarrassments which might be created for them than solicitous for the greatness of France in India. England was irritated and perturbed. Her affairs had been for a long time badly managed in India, but she remained there vital, active, and sustained by the indomitable ardor of a free people. At Versailles Dupleix was refused the help he asked; the confirmation of his conquests was delayed. The man who was to establish for England the empire of India over the ruins of Dupleix's work, had just arisen. Robert Clive, born in 1725, of a family of small Shropshire landholders, had been placed while very young in the offices of the India Company. His nature was turbulent. The assiduous work of a copying clerk did not admit of any title for him: he was a born general, and already his counsels were listened to by the chiefs of the company. In the peril which menaced it in consequence of Dupleix's triumphs, young Clive was placed at the head of an expedition which he had planned against Arcatan, the capital of the Carnatic. Having become master of the place by a bold stroke in the month of September, 1751, he was soon attacked there by Tchunda Sahib. During fifty days he withstood in the fortress the efforts of the Indians and the French. Provisions gave out, the rations became more insufficient every day; but Clive knew how to