At the close of the Napoleonic wars the colonial empire of France had reached the lowest point in its history. Of the very extensive territories which the Bourbon monarchy had accumulated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there remained in America only a few small islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Caribbean; in Africa only Senegal, Reunion and Madagascar (the latter practically abandoned); and in Asia only Pondicherry and a few small trading posts on the mainland of India. France had been forced to yield her place among the great colonizing powers of the world.

The course of events during the nineteenth century, however, has on more than one occasion borne testimony to the marvelous recuperative power of the French people; and in no more striking respect has this power been shown than in the development of new interests beyond the seas. Through the acquisition of Algeria and other important territories in Africa, and the assumption of protectorates over Tunis, Madagascar and extensive regions in Indo-China, the French have regained for themselves a place second only to Great Britain among the colonial powers of the present day.