candidates to the missions decided to go by themselves to Rome in June 1657. Appointment of missionary Bishops On 29 July 1658, the two chief founders of the Paris Foreign Missions Society were appointed as bishops in the Vatican, becoming Mgr Pallu, Bishop of Heliopolis in Augustamnica, Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, and Mgr Lambert de la Motte, Bishop of Berytus, Vicar Apostolic of Cochinchina. On 9 September 1659, the papal bull Super cathedram principis apostolorum by Pope Alexander VII defined the territories they would have to administer: for Mgr Pallu, Tonkin, Laos, and five adjacent provinces of southern China (Yunnan, Guizhou, Huguang, Sichuan, Guangxi), for Mgr Lambert de la Motte, Cochinchina and five provinces of southeastern China (Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hainan). In 1660 the third founder was appointed as Mgr Cotolendi, Bishop of Metellopolis, Vicar Apostolic of Nanjing, with also five provinces of China, namely Beijing, Shanxi, Shandong, Korea and Tartary. All of them were nominated Bishops in partibus infidelium ("In areas of the Infidels", i.e. Heliopolis, Beirut, Metellopolis etc...), receiving long-disappeared bishopric titles from areas that had been lost, in order not to compromise contemporary bishopric titles and avoid conflicts with the bishoprics established through the padroado system. In 1658 also, François de Laval was nominated Vicar Apostolic of Canada, and Bishop of Petra in partibus infidelium, becoming the first Bishop of New France, and in 1663 he would found the Séminaire de Québec with the support of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. The Society itself ("Assemblée des Missions") was formally established by the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement in 1658. The object of the new society was and is still the evangelization of non-Christian countries, by founding churches and raising up a native clergy under the jurisdiction of the bishops. The Society was officially recognized in 1664. The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society coincided with the establishment of the French East India Company. In order to dispatch the three missionaries to Asia, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement established a trading company (the "Compagnie de Chine", founded 1660). A ship, the Saint-Louis, was built in the Netherlands by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched. At the same time, the establishment of a trading company and the perceived threat of French missionary efforts to Asia was met with huge opposition by the Jesuits, the Portuguese, the Dutch and even the Propaganda, leading to the issuing