Antonin Doussot

Gaston Honoré Ferdinand Doussot OP (16 May 1830 – 15 March 1904) was a French Roman Catholic priest. He was novice master at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina (1860–1868), almoner to the Papal Zouaves, theologian at the First Vatican Council (1870), novice master at Mazères (1871–1872) and almoner to the Prouilhe monastery (1881).

Biography

Doussot was born at Épernay in the Marne. A pupil of the college of Epernay at the Lycée Charlemagne and the École normale supérieure in Paris, he was among Father Lacordaire's disciples. He entered the Dominicans first as a tertiary, then as a professed, and was ordained a priest on 13 July 1856 under the religious name of Antonin Doussot.

In the decade of 1860–70 he was almoner to the Papal Zouaves, later the Volunteers of the West. He celebrated mass on the day of the Battle of Mentana and after the capture of Rome he was ill-treated by the Italian military. With the Volunteers of the West, in France, he was present at the Battle of Loigny. At Patay he saves the flag of the Volunteers of the West and at Le Mans, however, he was taken prisoner by the Prussians on 10 June 1871.

Once the Franco-Prussian war was over, he returned to his convent of Prouille Monastery near Fanjeaux.

Following various religious persecutions, he was exiled. He died on 15 March 1904 in exile in Vichenet, Belgium. The commander of the Volunteers of the West and Lieutenant Colonel of the Pontifical Zouaves, Athanase de Charette, on the occasion of Doussot's death wrote in an Order of the Day about him, who was praised and described as 'one of the purest glories' of the regiment.

He was decorated with the Fidei et Virtuti medal — granted by Pope Pius IX to the volunteers who participated in the 1867 campaign — and the Benemerenti medal.

References

• Raynal, Marie-Joseph (1910). Notice sur le T. R. P. Antonin Doussot, dominicain, aumônier des zouaves pontificaux... Souvenir du cinquantenaire des zouaves pontificaux. Paris-Montmartre.
• Sacré-Cœur, Marie-Joseph du (1911). Le père Doussot, dominicain et la mère Elisabeth, carmélite, sa soeur. Paris: Plon-Nourrit et Cie.

External links

• Works by Antonin Doussot at Gallica