What touched the heart of Eugene and made him respond was the plight of people in Provence who were not being adequately catered for by the normal ministry of the local church.
Now, you will perhaps ask why, since I wish to be a missionary, I do not join you as well as the little band I could bring together. Were I to reply flippantly I would tell you right away that it is because you did not try very hard to have me. Not that this is the real reason since I really think, considering what I mentioned in my last letter, that I am not in a position to be of much use to you.
But what must be remembered is that our regions are without any help, that their peoples offer hopeful signs of being converted and must not therefore be abandoned. Yet we would abandon them if we joined you because we alone, and not you, can help them. We have to speak in their own tongue in order to be understood by them. We have to preach in Provençal. Should we form a band, nothing would prevent us from affiliating with you if such a union would be for the best.
He concludes the letter by showing that he is in a process of discernment, and in his tiredness after his illness he still has a secret longing for retiring to the contemplative life of a monastery.
I see no further than that. Despite all, a secret desire could draw me elsewhere.
Letter to Father Forbin Janson, 28 October 1814, O.W. VI n 2