From Fighting for the Pope to Teaching at the Naval Academy

Jean Poulain was born on April 22, 1845, in the commune of Écouflant, in the department of Maine-et-Loire, France, near the city of Angers. He was the son of Honoré Poulain and Marie Goujon, of Écouflant.[1]

At the age of eighteen, Poulain traveled to Rome to enlist in the Papal Zouaves, an international unit of Catholic soldiers who came from across Christendom to defend the Papal States and Blessed Pope Pius IX against Italian revolutionaries and Piedmontese forces during the Italian Risorgimento.

According to the unit’s matricule (registration no. 1372), he enlisted as a Papal Zouave on October 29, 1863, was promoted to corporal on February 6, 1866, and to sergeant on January 1, 1867. He took part in the 1867 defensive campaign against Garibaldi and his Red Shirt Army, and he served through the Siege of Rome in 1870, when the city fell to the forces of the Kingdom of Italy, ending the Papal States’ temporal rule.[2] According to his later American obituaries, he was slightly wounded during the fall of Rome.[3][4]

For his service to the Church, he received two papal decorations. From Blessed Pope Pius IX, for participating in the 1867 campaign in which the Papal army defeated Garibaldi and his Red Shirt Army, he received the Fidei et Virtuti medal. The medal is also nicknamed the Mentana Cross, named after the final battle in which Garibaldi was decisively defeated. This victory allowed the Papal States to survive another 3 years. In 1892, on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Mentana, Pope Leo XIII awarded all the surviving Papal Zouaves, including Poulain, the Benemerenti medal (Good conduct medal) to honor the remaining veterans for their loyal service and defense of the Holy See.[4][5][6]

Over fifteen years later, on May 28, 1887, by then a resident of Washington, D.C., Poulain des Garennes gave an extensive interview to a reporter of the Washington Star, recalling his service in vivid detail, the organization, uniforms, and dangers of the Papal army, and a remarkable memory of a fellow soldier in his own company: John Surratt, who had been implicated in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. The interview is reproduced here in full, as it stood in the original publication, since it is the fullest firsthand account of this period of his life:[7]

GUARDING THE POPE.

The Army that Once Defended the Old Papal States.

TALK WITH AN OLD PAPAL ZOUAVE—ONLY A REMNANT OF THE ARMY NOW RETAINED—THE PERILS OF A ZOUAVE’S LIFE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY TIME—JOHN H. SURRATT AS A ZOUAVE.

“The soldiers of the Papal army had to do some hard fighting.” The speaker is a gentleman now residing in this city, who was once a Papal Zouave, and he was answering a sweeping inquiry by a Star reporter for information about the soldiers that guard the pope. “At one time,” he went on, “the zouaves, 800 in number, withstood for a long time at one of the villages of the Papal states 30,000 Italian troops, and yielded the place then only on terms most honorable to them. They were permitted to leave the place bearing their arms. I remember seeing a zouave, struck by a cannon ball in such a way that he was disemboweled and whirled against a wall, drag himself to a gun that was near, and fire it.

At the present time though, there is an army only in name. After the Franco-Prussian war broke out, when France’s protection was withdrawn from the Papal states, and the Italians took possession, the Papal army was disbanded, the Guardia Nobili and the Swiss Guard only being retained in service.

THE GORGEOUS NOBLE GUARD.

“The Guardia Nobili,” continued the ex-zouave, “is composed entirely of Italian noblemen. There are one hundred of them, and they all rank as officers. Twenty-five are on duty at a time. They attend the pope as a body guard. On occasions of great ceremony all of the hundred may turn out. They are drilled as cavalry, and present a splendid appearance. When in undress uniform they wear blue coats of the swallow-tail pattern. Their full-dress uniform coats are red, with gold trimmings. They wear helmets, with horse-hair plumes; white trousers, very tight, with high-top boots, of patent leather, and make a very elegant and soldierly appearance. Their horses are all white. These gorgeous guards surround the pope’s coach on the street and his chair at St. Peter’s.

“The Swiss Guards guard the avenues to the church. They are all men six feet high or over. The regiment, though called Swiss, is made up of Italians, French, Germans, and men of other nationalities. The Swiss Guard is a very ancient institution, and, I suppose, was originally recruited in Switzerland.”

THE DISBANDED ARMY.

“When I was a Papal zouave, besides the Guardia Nobili and the Swiss Guard there were a regiment of Swiss riflemen, two battalions of zouaves, numbering 1,800 men, two batteries of artillery, 600 mounted gens d’armes, and a regiment of Italian carabineers, besides two regiments of the foreign legion of the French army, sent there by Napoleon III, but withdrawn during the Franco-Prussian war. This foreign legion was officered by France and supported by France, and performed no police, vidette or scout duty. It was maintained there by Napoleon as a menace to Italy.

WITH TRUNK HOSE AND HALBERDS.

“These Swiss Guards wore an old-fashioned Swiss uniform, the national costume of old Switzerland. The shoes were black, and cut low, the stockings, reaching to the thigh, were striped lengthwise, with black and yellow stripes; the short breeches, or trunks, were similarly striped; the tunic also was black and yellow in stripes. The helmet was of silver, and the Guardsman wore gauntlets, and was armed with a short sword with a black hilt, and a halberd, or axe, on the end of a long pole.

“The Swiss riflemen were, as their name implies, Swiss. They were all men of small stature, and were uniformed like the light infantry of the French line, with dark blue tunic, light blue zouave pants; white gaiters, facings white and green, and regulation French infantry caps. They carried rifles with sword bayonets.”

THE ZOUAVES.

“The Papal zouaves, to which I belonged, were recruited in Ireland in 1860, and were composed then entirely of Irishmen. They went to Rome during the troubles with Garibaldi, and remained there, but the organization lost its distinctive Irish character and became cosmopolitan—men of every nationality being found in the ranks, from the black African to the Caucasian American. I remember one from Alabama, one from Missouri, and another from Louisiana. As the Irishmen were gradually eliminated by the expiration of their terms, or by death or casualties, the ranks were filled up, largely by gentlemen of means, and it became the corps d’elite, being much respected. There were very few members of the organization who did not wear decorations. To be a member of the organization gave one entree to society. The uniform of the private or enlisted man was of light gray, faced with orange. The fatigue cap was of the French pattern; his dress cap a low fur cap like that worn in the Russian army. He carried an Enfield rifle with a sword bayonet. The officers wore a uniform of sky-blue, trimmed with black, and high-top patent-leather boots.

“The Italian carabineers had a uniform consisting of a dark blue coat of the pigeon-tail pattern, and red pants with dark blue stripe, and were armed with rifles and sword bayonets. The gens d’armes, like the French, wore a dark blue dress coat, wide pants of light blue with dark blue stripe, drawn tight over the shoe, aigrettes of white, and a chapeau. The facings were white. They were armed with sabers and carbines. The artillery uniform consisted of an artillery jacket, and pants of dark blue. The officers’ uniform had gold facings. The commander-in-chief was nominally the minister of war. Each regiment had a colonel. The zouaves, formed in two battalions, had a colonel and a lieutenant-colonel.

The colonel of the zouaves was the actual commander-in-chief in the field. Col. de Charette, of the zouaves, was a member of an old French family. At the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war all the foreign legion and those of the zouaves of French nationality or proclivities entered the French army, under the command of Col. de Charette and his Lieut. Col. d’Allet, and they covered themselves with glory.

Just after the disbanding of the Piedmontese army, the papal states were scoured by armed bodies of men who called themselves brigands. It was against these that our troops operated.

HOW ZOUAVES WERE ASSASSINATED.

“The life of a zouave was always in peril, even in the city of Rome,” he went on. “They were marked by the revolutionists, disliked because they were foreigners and feared because they could not be corrupted. The revolutionists were afraid to kill a soldier of the French legion for they knew they would invite the vengeance of France. They always said they could buy the Italian troops, but the only thing to do to a Zouave was to kill him. How did they do it? Well, a zouave would be walking along the street. Some one would tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘a light please,’ or ask the time of day, and as the unlucky Zouave turned his head a stiletto would be plunged over his shoulder down near his collar bone, into his heart. These stilettos had blades half of glass, and the glass would break off and remain in the man’s heart. He would be killed instantly without making an outcry. The loose, open collar, exposing all the throat, worn by the zouaves was a sort of invitation to an attack of this kind. These street assassinations were very frequent. We used to have a funeral nearly every day. Finally, orders were given us that if any man approached us to ask for a light or the time of day to draw our sword bayonets, and stand him off before answering him.”

JOHN H. SURRATT AS A ZOUAVE.

“John H. Surratt, who was charged with complicity in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln, when he escaped from the United States, went to Rome and became a Papal zouave. He was a member of the company to which I belonged, the second company of the second battalion. When it was decided by the papal authorities to give him up to the United States Government, preparations were made for that purpose and meanwhile he was incarcerated in the castle of St. Angelo, the tomb of Hadrian. During the night he was lowered over the wall by two friends of his, Capt. Boisjolli, a French officer of the zouaves, and First Sergeant Thornton, of Toronto. They tied their long scarfs together and let Surratt down with them. He escaped to Alexandria and was there turned over to the United States authorities by the Turkish government.”

Though the newspaper does not name the interviewee, the timeline and the recurring biographical details make it virtually certain this unnamed “gentleman now residing in this city” was Poulain des Garennes himself.

After the fall of Rome on September 20, 1870, under abysmal and painful conditions, the foreign Papal Zouaves were slowly repatriated to their native countries. With the Franco-Prussian war ongoing the majority of the French Papal Zouaves decided to continue their service under the banner of France. Under the leadership of Athanase de Charette (the great nephew of Vendean leader François de Charette) the unit was rebranded as the Volunteers of the West and they continued the lineage of the unit, retaining the same uniforms and patrimony.