The young member of the Youth Congregation lingered for a month longer. During this time Eugene paid him frequent visits. Yvon Beaudoin comments:
“During his first years of priesthood, Eugene accompanied to the moment of death the terminally ill who asked for him. Fortuné de Mazenod wrote to the Founder’s father on April 1, 1819: “you know he does not leave for a moment the souls confided to his care when they are in danger of death” APR FB V 1-7”
Eugene writes in his Diary:
The congregant who made his first communion by way of Viaticum last month being on the point of death, the congregants gathered in the church of the Madeleine and when the death knell had sounded the Reverend Director, in conformity with the article of the regulation, himself led the prayers for the dying, and he did not forget the dying man but visited him five or six times a day, often accompanied by some of the congregants who are very glad to carry out this act of charity.
Diary of the Aix Christian Youth Congregation, 30 March 1815, O.W. XVI
One is reminded of how this practice nearly led to his death the year before as he accompanied the Austrian prisoners of war who were dying of typhus.