In "The Devil Disguised as St. Elmo" we follow Pierre Taillandier, a Jesuit priest and astronomer, to the New World and on to French India to serve as a missionary. His epic journey began in 1707 in France and ended when he reached Pondicherry in 1710. The next year, he wrote a letter about this voyage to his superior in Paris that began with these prescient words: "After God, I owe Your Reverend the happiness that I enjoy dedicating my remaining days to the conversion of Infidels." Not long thereafter, while enroute to a new mission in Golconda, Taillandier mysteriously disappeared.