The Compagnie de Chine was a French trading company established in 1660 by the Catholic society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia (initially Bishops François Pallu, Pierre Lambert de la Motte and Ignace Cotolendi of the newly founded Paris Foreign Missions Society).[1] The company was modelled on the Dutch East India Company.[2]
A ship was built in the Netherlands by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched.[3] The only remaining solution for the missionaries was to travel on land, since Portugal would have refused to take non-Padroado missionaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries.[4]
In 1664, the China Company would be fused by Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar into the Compagnie des Indes Orientales.[5]
A second Compagnie de Chine was established in 1698.[6]
The Compagnie de Chine was reactivated in 1723.[7]