La Poire, nickname of the marquis Boniface de Périer, was a childhood friend of Eugene’s father. In this extract from a letter of Eugene to his father, one gets a glimpse of Eugene’s sense of humour. I can imagine him grinning as he writes about his attempts to get La Poire to convert – but “terrorising” him with a very serious aim for doing it.
… What you say about La Poire is very true. So it is not just out of kindness I asked you for a letter for him, but because of your business relation with him. What you indicate to me for him is enough; I will tell him. He is known as a supreme egoist; I regret it, and even more that he pays little heed to his salvation. I am all the more concerned that he will in all probability be caught unawares by death, which he is afraid of in a way that is at once dreadful and laughable. I see him rarely as I am too busy to see him often. However, for the good of his soul, I regale him each time I meet him with the story of some sudden death; it is with the intention of getting him to come back sincerely to God, who will lose patience in the end with his holding back.
Letter to Charles Antoine de Mazenod, 15 September 1815, O.W. XV n. 134