On arriving in India, he found the arsenals and the magazines empty; the establishment of Pondicherry alone confessed to fourteen millions of debt.

Meanwhile the enemy was pressing at all points upon the French possessions.

Lally marched to Gondelour (_Kaddaloue_), which he carried on the sixth day; he, shortly afterwards, invested Fort St.David, the most formidable of the English fortresses in India.

The first assault was repulsed; the general had neither cannon nor beasts of burden to draw them.

He hurried off to Pondicherry and had the natives harnessed to the artillery trains, taking pellmell such men as fell in his way, without regard for rank or caste, imprudently wounding the prejudices most dear to the country he had come to govern.
Fort St.David was taken and razed.