Alexandre de Rhodes, who appears at this juncture, is another of the picturesque figures in the history of the Society. According to Fénelon, it is he who inspired the formation of the great association of the Missions Etrangères, which has sent so many thousands of glorious apostles, many of whom were martyrs, to evangelize the countries from which he had come in a most unexpected and extraordinary fashion. He was born in Avignon, the old French City of the Popes, and was called by his contemporaries the "Francis Xavier of Cochin-China and Tonkin." He left Rome for the Indies when he was only twenty-six years of age, and began his missionary work in the East by looking after the slaves and jailbirds of Goa. On his way from that city to Tuticorin he baptized fifty pagans on shipboard, his eloquence being helped by the furious tempest that threatened to send the frail bark to the bottom. While waiting at Malacca for the ship to get ready, he and his companion captured another two thousand souls for the Lord, and when he arrived at his destination, other thousands came into the fold, among them the king and eighteen members of the royal household, and two hundred of the priests of the pagan temples. Nor did this rapidity denote instability, for twenty-five years later the Church of Tuticorin which he founded could count at its altars no less than 300,000 Christians. It is said that he had even the power of making thaumaturgists out of his catechumens. By the use of holy water or the relic of the cross, they restored people to health, and as many as two hundred and seventy sufferers from various maladies were the recipients of such favors. When he was thrown into prison and loaded with fetters, as he often was, he converted his jailers and others besides. When carried off in a ship to be ejected from the country, he baptized the captain and crew and got them to put him ashore in a desolate place where he began a new apostolate. Fifteen times, in his journeys to Tonkin and Cochin-China, he crossed the Gulf of Tonkin, which had a terrible record of tempests and shipwrecks, and finally he started on his famous overland tramp to Europe in search of evangelical laborers. He achieved his purpose, though it took him three years and a half to do it.