As for the honours that it amuses them to say I am soliciting without being able to obtain them, they must know that I had only to stoop in order to make them mine;
It is not honours that Eugene desires – he has already found God’s treasure in the community and in the pastoral ministry they are engaged in:
but if they knew all the strength and extent of the affection I have primarily for yourselves, who are my brothers, my friends, my other selves and moreover my concern for the souls of the young so cruelly abandoned as long as I had not undertaken to lead them in the right path by the same means that are in the power of the parish priests to use and which, in consequence, they ought to use as I have done by the grace of God, and just as you have done who concert your efforts with mine; if they knew, I say, my sentiments in this matter, they would cease to be surprised at my renouncing the honours offered to me and returning as a simple priest to this cherished family in order to undergo once more all the perfidiousness of which I have already experienced such cruel attacks.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 24 November 1817, O.W. VI n. 30