Examines metropolitan French-language representations of India from the period between the recall of Dupleix to France to the Second Treaty of Paris. This book explores what a European power, territorially peripheral in India, thought of both India and the administrative rule there of its rival, Britain.

Introduction; Chapter 1 The French Presence in India Between 1754 and 1815: from the 'Beaux Jours Du Gouvernement De Dupleix' to Annihilation?; Chapter 2 Constructing India as Other : Fiction, Travelogues and Ambassadors; Chapter 3 Emasculating India: The Indienne, Feminization and Female Writers; Chapter 4 Mythical India; Chapter 5 Historical India: Narratives of the Past; Chapter 6 The Philosophes, 'Anticolonialism' and the Rule of the British East India Company; Chapter 7 Conclusion;