Born in
Tours, now in
Indre-et-Loire, Pallu was recruited by
Alexander de Rhodes, SJ, as a
secular clergy volunteer to become a missionary in Asia, together with
Pierre Lambert de la Motte and
Ignace Cotolendi. These were sent to the Far East as
Apostolic vicars. In 1658, Pallu became Bishop of
Heliopolis, and
Vicar apostolic of Tonkin (which consisted of northern
Vietnam,
Laos and five provinces of southwest China). Lambert left
Marseille on 26 November 1660, and reached
Mergui in
Siam 18 months later. Pallu, with nine associates, left on 3 January 1662. With Lambert, Pallu founded in 1665-66 the general seminary in
Ayutthaya,
Siam (the
Seminary of Saint Joseph, at the origin of the
College General now in
Penang,
Malaysia). From 1667 to 1673, Pallu was in France, where he published an account of the French missions in Southeast Asia. '' describing his captivity in
Manila In 1674, Pallu was sailing to his archdiocese in
Tonkin, but met with a storm and had to land in
Manila. He was imprisoned by the Spanish and put on a ship to
Acapulco and from there to Spain to be judged. He was finally freed through the intervention of
Pope Innocent XI and
Louis XIV. After this involuntary trip around the world, he would only be able to return to Siam in July 1682. In 1684, Pallu arrived in China, where he was in charge of what is now the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Fuzhou. He died in the same year in Muyang,
Fujian. ==Works==