Labourdonnais, Or Labourdonnaie, Bertrand Francois Mahe De, a French naval officer, born in St. Malo, Feb. 11, 1699, died about 1755. He entered the service of the French East India company as a lieutenant in 1718, and became a captain in 1724. In 1734 he was appointed director general of the isles of France and Bourbon. These colonies, which he found in a state of anarchy, grew rapidly in prosperity under his government, and became the depots of commerce between Europe and the Indies. He built fortifications, aqueducts, quays, canals, hospitals, and ship yards, and introduced the culture of manioc, sugar, indigo, and cotton. In 1746, during the Avar between England and France, he improvised a fleet, dispersed the squadron of Admiral Barnet before Madras, and bombarded the city, which surrendered on Sept. 21. The French ministry had given orders that no attempt should be made to hold any of the English possessions that were captured, and the victor agreed to accept a ransom for the city of 1,100,000 pagodas (about 9,500,000 francs); but Dupleix, governor general of the French Indies, jealous of Labourdonnais, refused to ratify his act. Labourdonnais was obliged by a storm to put to sea, and Dupleix, declaring void the articles of capitulation signed by him, removed all English property to Pondicherry, and burned the city.

Labourdonnais, on his return to the isle of France, found a successor installed in his place by Dupleix. Returning home, he hoped there to receive justice; but three days after his arrival in Paris, on the night of March 2, 1748, he was seized and thrown into the Bastile, where he lay for three years and a half, ignorant of his accusation and not permitted to communicate even with his family. In 1751 a commission appointed by the council of state pronounced him innocent of all the charges brought against him, and gave him his liberty; but his spirit was broken, and his existence during his last years was embittered by poverty and suffering. The government afterward, recognizing the injustice done him, gave his widow a pension of 2,400 livres. In 1859 a statue was erected to him in the isle of Bourbon (now Reunion). His life was written by his grandson, the actor Bertrand Francois Mahe (8vo, Paris, 1827).