[Footnote 2:  Literally the fourth part of the Revenues.  The Marathas extorted the right to levy this from the Emperor Aurengzebe, and under pretext of collecting it they ravaged a large portion of India.]

[Footnote 3:  Court, or Court officials and nobles.]

[Footnote 4:  Such fires are mentioned in many Indian legends.  In the “Arabian Nights” we read of a demon changing himself into a flaming fire.]

[Footnote 5:  His age is stated by some as nineteen, by others as about twenty-five.  See note, p. 66.]

[Footnote 6:  Amina Begum.]

[Footnote 7:  Diwan, i.e.  Minister or Manager.]

[Footnote 8:  The English at Dacca surrendered to the Nawab of that place, and were afterwards released.  Those at Jugdea and Balasore escaped direct to Fulta.]

[Footnote 9:  Captain George Minchin.]

[Footnote 10:  Known in history as the Black Hole of Calcutta.]

[Footnote 11:  Both stories may be true.  Manik Chand was nearly killed at the battle of Budge Budge by a bullet passing through his turban, and the incident of the nautch may have happened at Calcutta, where he certainly showed less courage.]

[Illustration:  FORT D’ORLEANS, CHANDERNAGORE, 1749. (Mouchet.)]

CHAPTER II

M. RENAULT, CHIEF OF CHANDERNAGORE

The French East India Company was founded in 1664, during the ministry of M. Colbert.  Chandernagore, on the Ganges, or rather that mouth of it now known as the River Hugli, was founded in 1676; and in 1688 the town and territory were ceded to France by the Emperor Aurengzebe.  I know of no plan of Chandernagore in the 17th century, and those of the 18th are extremely rare.  Two or three are to be found in Paris, but the destruction of the Fort and many of the buildings by the English after its capture in 1757, and the decay of the town after its restoration to the French, owing to diminished trade, make it extremely difficult to recognize old landmarks.  The Settlement, however, consisted of a strip of land, about two leagues in length and one in depth, on the right or western bank of the Hugli.  Fort d’Orleans lay in the middle of the river front.  It was commenced in 1691, and finished in 1693.[12] Facing the north was the Porte Royale, and to the east, or river-side, was the Water Gate.  The north-eastern bastion was known as that of the Standard, or Pavillon.  The north-western bastion was overlooked by the Jesuit Church, and the south-eastern by the Dutch Octagon.  This last building was situated on one of a number of pieces of land which, though within the French bounds, belonged to the Dutch before the grant of the imperial charter, and which the Dutch had always refused to sell.  The Factory buildings were in the Fort itself.  To the west lay the Company’s Tank, the hospitals, and the cemetery.  European houses, interspersed with native dwellings, lay all