Apparently unsuccessful though his effort was, it brought about some results. Mme. d'Aiguillon, the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, took the matter up, but even she, with her great influence, could induce the ecclesiastical authorities to do no more than create one little vicariate Apostolic. It was a far cry from the great hierarchical scheme of de Rhodes. One of the Bagotists, Pallu, was appointed, though, for a time there was a question of sending Laval also to the East; but the necessity of having a bishop in Quebec was so urgent that Pallu was sent alone to Tonkin. Portugal, however, refused to carry him thither, although Louis XIV asked it as a special favor. In 1658 when Pallu attempted to go out at his own risk he reached not Cochin-China but Siam. He was back again in France in 1665, begging protection against the Portuguese, who were arresting his priests and putting them in jail at Goa and Macao. In 1674 he was shipwrecked in the Philippines and carried off a prisoner to Spain, and was liberated only by the united efforts of the Pope and Louis XIV. He set sail again, but was driven ashore on the Island of Formosa and never reached Tonkin. Meantime the Jesuits had not forgotten Francis Xavier's dream about China. The Dominican Gaspar de la Cruz had found his way through its closed gates, four years after Xavier expired on the island opposite Canton, but he was promptly expelled. It was only in 1581, fully thirty-six years subsequent to the attempt of de la Cruz, that the Jesuits finally succeeded. All that time they had been waiting at Macao,--a settlement granted to the Portuguese in return for the assistance given to China in beating off a fleet of plundering sea-rovers. They had long since seen the folly of attempting to enter a new country under the shadow of some pretentious embassy, for inevitably a suspicion was left lurking in the minds of both the governments and the people that there was an ulterior political motive back of the preaching of the priests. Hence it was that Valignani, though in general believing in embassies to kings and rulers, after the new religion was well understood and accepted in a country, had become convinced that it was unwise to begin the work in that ostentatious fashion. He, therefore, took three clever young Italians, Michele Ruggieri, Francesco Pasio and Matteo Ricci, and after training them thoroughly in mathematics and in all the branches of the natural sciences, ordered them not only to master the Chinese language, but also to familiarize themselves with the literature and the history of the country. Ricci was available especially as a mathematician, having been the favorite pupil of Father Clavius, who was one of the chief constructors of the Gregorian Calendar.