The French missionary and Titular Bishop of Adran Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, who had come to evangelize in Cochinchina, played a role in Vietnamese history towards the end of the 18th century. Pigneau would ingratiate himself to and eventually become confidant to Nguyễn Ánh, the last of the Nguyễn lords, then engaged in a civil war. Pigneau hoped that with a Nguyễn Ánh victory, he would gain concessions for the Catholic Church in Vietnam. A recent study suggests that his contribution to Ánh's succeed was not as it was conventionally believed to have been.