SONIS, LOUIS-GASTON de. - General, born at Pointe-à-Pitre (Island of Guadeloupe in the Franco-Dutch Antilles) on 25 Aug. 1825, died in Paris on 15 Aug. 1887.
Educated at the Collège of Saint-Cyr, he completed his moral and military training in Castres, Paris, Limoges, and above all during the four years he spent in Algeria (1844-1859). He took part in the campaigns of Montebello and Solferino (1859) with the French troops; then he went to Morocco (1858-70), participating in military actions against the Kabyles. Returning to Paris (1870), he obtained permission to fight against Germany; afterwards he was named commander-in-chief at Rennes, Servan, Châteauroux, from where he sent in his resignation rather than bear the shame of cooperating by force in the expulsion of religious from their homes; but he soon resumed service as an inspector at Limoges and Paris.
An officer of deep and exemplary faith, combined with fervent apostolic activity, ready for duty as for the voice and love of God, he merited that his life be summed up on his tomb in the words “Miles Christi.”