Éléazar-François des Achards de la Baume, or des Achards de Ferrus (1679–1741), a native of Avignon, France, and a titular bishop of Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, passed many laborious years as a missionary in his own country; but he found many obstacles from the rivalry of different ecclesiastical orders. His honorable adherence to the offices of piety and humanity that he discharged during the plague at Avignon in 1721, brought the attention of Pope Clement XII, who employed him as an apostolic vicar to settle the disgraceful disputes which had arisen among the missionaries in Cochinchina.