SONIS, LOUIS-GASTON de. - General, b. at Pointe-à-Pitre (Island of Guadeloupe in the French Antilles) on 25 Aug. 1825, d. at Paris on 15 Aug. 1887.
Educated at the College of Saint-Cyr, he completed his moral and military formation at Castres, Paris, Limoges, and above all during the four years of his residence in Algeria (1854-1859). He took part in the campaigns of Montebello and Solferino (1859) with the French troops; he then went to Morocco (1858-70), taking part in military actions against the Kabyles. Having returned to Paris (1870), he obtained permission to fight against Germany; he was then appointed commander-in-chief at Rennes, Servan, Châteauroux, whence he sent in his resignation rather than suffer the disgrace of cooperating by force in the expulsion of religious from their houses; but he soon resumed service as inspector at Limoges and Paris.
An officer of profound and exemplary faith, joined to fervent apostolic activity, ready alike for duty and for the call and love of God, he deserved to have his life summed up upon his tomb in the words «Miles Christi».