Before the Rule of the Oblates could be approved, it had to be studied by a number of cardinals. Eugene began to make contact with each one so as to explain what it was all about.
In the meanwhile, I am calling on the Cardinals who are summoned to give their opinion. Making an approach to one in particular seemed to me a very thorny matter;
Eugene is referring here to Cardinal Fesch, uncle of Napoleon, who had retired to Rome after his nephew had been toppled from power and sent into exile. Eugene had always been strongly opposed to Napoleon and his principles, and thus to meet with his uncle was not something that he would normally have chosen to do:
human prudence might perhaps have required that I make an exception in his regard but not to see him and make him hostile to the cause which depends on me would amount to the same thing. So I have been to see him without revealing to him my inmost thoughts – that would not have made my visit agreeable to him. What I foresaw happened; he was very appreciative of my gesture and immediately invited me to dinner. That was the embarrassing part of the affair but you know I have a certain noblesse of soul which makes me defy opinion: I would have thought it cowardly to refuse, so I accepted. I am not any less a good royalist for that and an infinitely better royalist than those who could blame and denounce me if they knew.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 28 December 1825, EO VI n 214
Eugene was a royalist – a supporter of the legal hereditary king of France, whose throne Napoleon had usurped. Some would have criticized Eugene for having visited with the Cardinal, but under the circumstances, he did not see it as a betrayal of his principles to be polite. A favorable verdict on the Oblate approbation was infinitely more important than his personal opinions on Napoleon’s uncle.
“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” Napoleon Bonaparte
It does not surprise me that Eugene considered himself to be a royalist, he came from ‘nobility’ himself and it shows up in his writings, his attitudes, etc. Yet in spite of his personal leanings he went to visit Cardinal Fesch and accorded him the civility that he would give to any other, but without sharing his most personal feelings, joys and struggles. It seems the older man was pleased with his visit. Eugene’s comment of “better royalist than those who could blame and denounce me if they knew.” was very telling. Here I see the man with a ‘heart as big as the world’. Here I see the man who has given his ‘all’ to God, so that he might love as God loves. There was struggle within him as he performed this small ‘nicety’ and yet he did it. I don’t believe he was boasting simply relating to Henri Tempier his state of being as he went out his actions.
Here in Eugene I see the person we are each of us called to be. We are all called to love and forgive, to forgive and to love (I don’t know which comes first). We seem always to be asked to let go of our personal struggles and doubts, hurts and joys and to just love and take care of all equally – especially those who have hurt us somehow or who go against our most basic beliefs. Any number of faces pass before the eyes of my mind. This is what we are all about.
As for Frank’s quote of Napoleon – I am one of those ‘common people’ being referred to and it is perhaps better that I not ‘react’. I will instead quote Eugene and say I leave here today “without revealing to him my inmost thoughts” about Napoleon.
St. Eugene here shows true Humilitas…the Queen of all the virtues! It is evident very early on that the Holy Spirit had inspired him to accept this most important spiritual character and lead him beyond his “comfort zone” and into the Kingdom of God…thus he begins his march towards sanctity and builds a solid foundation for the future of his congregation by his own example! Oh, how many Oblates have courageously followed in his footsteps…the footsteps of the apostles and of the saints!