But for various reasons the French slackened in their exploration of the Indian Ocean in the second half of the sixteenth century. Their interest in this direction was only revived under the great ministers of Henry IV and Louis XIII. In the first half of the seventeenth century the French laid the foundation of their future claims to Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands, and founded repeatedly chartered companies to deal with the trade of the Indian Ocean. But none of their adventurers seem to have penetrated to the Spice Islands or the Pacific until the eighteenth century. Their colonial ambitions in Africa and Asia were awakened in a great measure through the most remarkable of their kings, Louis XIV. With farsighted ambition this monarch strove to acquire special interests for France in Abyssinia (in which direction he failed), in Siam, and Cochin China; and he took advantage of his occasional alliances or friendship with the Spanish monarch to send explorers and men of science to examine the wonderful regions of South America, under the jealous rule of Spain and Portugal. One of these explorers was Frézier (Fraser), of Scottish descent, and the work which he published on his return, dealing with the southern extremity of South America, drew attention to the unoccupied Falkland Islands, known to the French as Malouines, and the Spaniards as Malvinas. This hint attracted the notice of a very remarkable Frenchman, LOUIS ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE, who had served in the French Embassy in London, and had also been an officer of the French army in Canada. In 1765 he persuaded the merchants of St. Malo, in Brittany, to fit out an expedition which should colonize the Falkland Islands. But, this archipelago being claimed by Spain, it was handed over to the Spanish authorities by Bougainville, who afterwards proceeded in command of a ship called the _Boudeuse_ (the Sulker) to navigate the Straits of Magellan and explore the Pacific Ocean. In his westward course he touched at the Tuamotu Islands, and rediscovered the Island of Tahiti, which he called Cythère (the Island of Venus). Sailing westwards, he was probably the first explorer to discover the Samoa group, named by him the Navigators' Islands, from the bold seamanship of its Polynesian people. From Samoa he passed on to the New Hebrides, and, then directing his course due west, with the deliberate intention of searching for the Great Southern Continent, he was stopped in this search by encountering the Great Barrier Reef, which guards so much of the approach to the north-east coast of Australia from south latitude 23° to 15°. Turning off, therefore, to the north-west, he encountered and named the Louisiade archipelago of islands and islets, which is off the south-easternmost extremity of New Guinea. Instead, however, of venturing through the Torres Straits (the existence of which was then a geographical secret in possession of Spain), he