MARTILLAT, JOACHIN ENJOBERT de. - Born in 1706 at Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme) to a family of old nobility, he entered the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris in 1727, left for the Far East in the same year, and in 1731 was ordained priest at Juthia (Siam).
In 1732 he settled in Szechwan and was twice expelled from it by the apostolic vicar Msgr. Mullener, a Lazarist; but in 1737 he obtained from Rome permission for the Seminary of Paris to send there its missionaries, who had previously evangelized the region. On 2 Oct. 1739 he was appointed titular bishop of Ecrinea and apostolic vicar of Yunnan. Msgr. Mullener consecrated him. In 1744 he was also appointed superior of Szechwan, Hou-Kouang, and Kutchêu, and established the regulations, still in force, for Chinese virgins and catechists. The persecution of 1745-46 and illness compelled him in Sept. 1746 to take refuge in Macao, whence he departed for France on 6 Jan. 1748. In 1753 he was appointed assistant to the Throne. On 24 Aug. 1755 he died in Rome, where for two years he had held the office of procurator of his Seminary of the Foreign Missions, and he is buried in the church of Trinità dei Monti.