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

François Pallu

François Pallu was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...

, Pierre Lambert de la Motte

Pierre Lambert de la Motte

Pierre Lambert de la Motte was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia.-Life:...

 and Ignace Cotolendi

Ignace Cotolendi

Ignace Cotolendi was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...

 of the newly-founded Paris Foreign Missions Society

Paris Foreign Missions Society

The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....

). The compagny was modelled on the Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

.

A ship was built in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched. The only remaining solution for the missionaries was to travel on land, since Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 would have refused to take non-Padroado

Padroado

The Padroado , was an arrangement between the Holy See and the kingdom of Portugal, affirmed by a series of treaties, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Spain and Portugal the administration of the local Churches...

missionnaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionnaries.

In 1664, the China Company would be fused by Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

 with the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar into the Compagnie des Indes Orientales.

A second Compagnie de Chine was established in 1698.

The Compagnie de Chine was reactivated in 1723.