After Napoleon’s departure, things were changing in France and the Pope had asked for mission preaching to be used in order to restore the state of the ravaged French Church. Eugene’s friend Charles Forbin Janson responded immediately by starting a group of mission preachers, to which he invited Eugene to join. Eugene responded:
“For myself, I am not thinking of it just now… I foresee that in the near future my affairs are going to be disrupted. My father and uncles are on the point of returning. On their arrival they will badly need my help. And then I will have to find them places.
Afterwards I shall be free, if indeed that is possible; for up to now and for a long time I am everyone’s servant and at the disposition of whoever approaches me first. This is apparently God’s will.
Letter to Father Forbin Janson, 12 September 1814, in O.W. XV n. 128.
The seed of a future direction seems to have been planted in Eugene’s mind – but for the moment he finds the will of God in his present occupations.