At the time of Eugene’s decision to go to the seminary, the war between Napoleon and Britain had prevented communications between France and Palermo. Eugene’s father was thus not aware that his son had studied to be a priest and had been ordained. He found out some time later by indirect means. It was only with the fall of Napoleon in 1814 that the means of communication were re-established. In this letter Eugene is angry that the motives for his vocation to the priesthood had been misjudged by the “high-society” gossips.
But here, I do not know how, a thought comes up that I must share with you; I had forgotten it up to now, but it hurt me at the time. When Madame de Ver[ac] passed through Marseilles, she showed me the copy of the letter you wrote to M. de Blacas at the end of which were some notes for his particular information. I have a copy of these sections.
In these notes, there was a reference to myself from which one might have concluded that I entered the clerical state only for the basest reasons and ones really unworthy of my character.
In all truth, never was there a vocation more free of self-interest than mine.
It is not because I had had such little success as my mother in restoring her fortunes that I forsook the world;
I could have had, through a number of highly advantageous marriages, the wherewithal to console myself with for a loss that after all was not so very considerable.
The idea that my sister would have a better marriage, etc., did not even enter my head either. I did not have to make the least shadow of a sacrifice for her to obtain that advantage.
I renounced no right, made no promise, and did not do anything at all to merit the praises that Vintimille and his sister sang in this matter and which were in fact so many atrocious insults which had me secretly smarting…
Letter to his father Charles Antoine de Mazenod, 7 December 1814, O.W. XV n. 129
President de Mazenod’s reply of explanation to his son concludes with the words: “I hope this explanation will suffice to calm your bad temper over certain hasty words that slipped out in my private memoir for the countess.”