From the biography: Mirra Alfassa aka The Mother’s early days in India as a Frenchwoman

The French East India Company set up a trading post in Pondicherry in 1674. For the next 140 years – a time of worldwide conflict between the French, British and Dutch regimes – the town passed back and forth between these imperial powers. In the middle of the eighteenth century, French Pondicherry enjoyed a period of influence and prosperity. Using the town as a base, Governor Joseph François Dupleix extended France’s influence in south India. French merchants and their Indian agents amassed huge fortunes exporting textiles to France. All this came to an end when the British occupied Pondicherry during the European wars of 1792–1815. After the defeat of Napoleon, the British returned five territories in southern and eastern India to the French. Pondicherry, now a shadow of its former self, was the largest. It became the capital of the French Settlements in India, a coaling station for ships en route to Indochina, an exporter of peanuts, a centre for smuggling and a thorn in the side of British Indian officials.

The oval-shaped town was laid out on a grid, with parallel avenues running north and south, intersected by parallel streets. A drainage canal bisecting the oval split the town into...

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