He joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1850 and was ordained on 5 June 1852.
Shortly after, he was sent to Mysore, in southern India.
He was appointed as the Apostolic Vicar in Bangalore in 1857.
In 1859, he published there, in English, a work titled Controversial Catechism, or short answers to the objections of Protestants against the true religion.
He spent the years 1860 to 1863 in France, recovering from epilepsy.
During this period, he supervised the casting of type fonts for the Telagu and Kanara languages, which he took with him when he returned to Bangalore in 1863, using them for some publications in vernacular languages under his editorship.
In 1867, he got ill again and returned to France.
In 1870 he was sent to Quebec on a speaking tour.
He stayed for a time at Laval University in Quebec.