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).
[3] The only remaining solution for the missionaries was to travel on land, since Portuguese ships refused to embark non-Padroado missionaries, and Dutch and British ships refused to take Catholic missionaries at all.
[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.