Bussy."

He was mistaken about the justice as he had been about the discernment
and the boldness of the French government; not a promise was
accomplished; not a hope was realized; after delay upon delay, excuse
upon excuse, Dupleix saw his wife expire at the end of two years, worn
out with suffering and driven to despair; like her, his daughter,
affianced for a long time past to Bussy, succumbed beneath the weight of
sorrow; in vain did Dupleix tire out the ministers with his views and his
projects for India; he saw even the action he was about to bring against
the Company vetoed by order of the king. Persecuted by his creditors,
overwhelmed with regret for the relatives and friends whom he had
involvedin his enterprises and in his ruin, he exclaimed a few months
before his death, "I have sacrificed youth, fortune, life, in order to
load with honor and riches those of my own nation in Asia. Unhappy
friends, too weakly credulous relatives, virtuous citizens, have
dedicated their property to promoting the success of my projects; they
are now in want. . . . I demand, like the humblest of creditors, that
which is my due; my services are all stuff, my demand is ridiculous, I am
treated like the vilest of men. The little I have left is seized, I have
been obliged to get execution stayed to prevent my being dragged to
prison!" Dupleix died at last on the 11th of November, 1763, the most
striking, without being the last or the most tragical, victim of the
great French enterprises in India.

Despite the treaty of peace, hostilities had never really ceased in
India. Clive had returned from England; freed henceforth from the
influence, the intrigues, and the indomitable energy of Dupleix, he had
soon made himself master of the whole of Bengal, he had even driven the
French from Chandernuggur; Bussy had been unable to check his successes;
he avenged himself by wresting away from the English all their agencies
on the coast of Orissa, and closing against them the road between the
Coromandel coast and Bengal.

Meanwhile the Seven Years' War had broken out; the whole of Europe had
joined in the contest; the French navy, still feeble in spite of the
efforts that had been made to restore it, underwent serious reverses on
every sea. Count Lally-Tollendal, descended from an Irish family which
took refuge in France with James II., went to Count d'Argenson, still
minister of war, with a proposition to go and humble in India that