MADAGASCAR 
lo2 
their first settlement proving unhealthy in the highest 
degree, it had to be removed to another locality and 
there Fort Dauphin was erected. Negligent and bent 
only on his own advantage, Pronis treated the colonists 
with the greatest cruelty, so that soon an open insurrection 
broke out. The relations with the gentle natives soon 
turned to a state of open warfare. Pronis promised a 
planter of Mauritius to supply him with 73 slaves for 
field work, and when these were to be fetched away by 
Captain Vandremester the unscrupulous agent simply 
kidnapped the stipulated number of natives and sent them 
on board the ship, a piece of treachery which stirred 
up the deepest resentment among the natives. No 
wonder Pronis was ultimately put in fetters by his own 
countrymen in Fort Dauphin. When intelligence of these 
disorders was received in France the Rigault Company sent 
Flacourt in 1648 to undertake the management of the 
business. He was an upright man in himself, but did 
not understand the right way of managing the Malagasy, 
accustomed as they were to liberty; he acted with 
excessive rigour towards them, and in two years de¬ 
stroyed fifty of their villages. 
The concession to the Rigault Company came to an 
end in 1652 without any result worth naming, but it was 
renewed for another 15 years under the condition that 
the Company should be entirely reorganized, and it was 
only through the admission of the Duke de la Meilleraye 
to the Board that the undertaking was enabled to continue 
its operations to the year 1668. Champmargou was placed 
at the head of the reorganised company, and he endea¬ 
voured to win over the natives in a peaceful manner, 
but owing to his narrow-mindedness he committed all 
sorts of indiscretions; not only did he quarrel, from jea¬ 
lousy, with his ablest assistant, Lacaze, but he hit upon 
the unlucky idea of getting a Lazarist priest to come 
from Paris with the object of converting the natives to 
