At the end of the Old Regime, the Mascarene islands were already connected to India through numerous links which were mainly economical but also military and political. The new spirit of the revolutionary age encouraged their inhabitants to assert a very voluntarist Indian policy. They intervened several times in the domestic affairs of the French settlements in India and wished to counter the English hegemony owing to active support to Tipu, the sultan of Mysore. In the end, nevertheless, various reasons, particularly the priorities given to the military defence of the islands and above ail to the maintaining of their social order based on slavery, considerably restricted the effective consequences of this policy. However, thanks to the Revolution, a new way of viewing the relationships between the Europeans and the Indians was allowed expression and among the latter an egalitarian and libertarian ideology may have penetrated at least superficially.