François Rochebrune

François Rochebrune (Polish: Franciszek Rochebrune) (born 1 June or 1 January 1830, died 19 November 1870 (some sources state 1871)) was a French soldier. He was born to an impoverished family. He served in the French Zouaves during the Crimean War. He then lived in Poland for two years as a tutor. He returned to the French Zouaves for five years, serving as a sergeant in China. He then returned to live in Poland once again in 1862. When the Polish rebellion against Russian rule began in January 1863, he formed and led a Polish rebel unit called the Zouaves of Death. Within months, he had been promoted to general. After the collapse of the uprising, he returned to France, where his exploits in Poland earned him the rank of captain in the French army. He was promoted to colonel for the Franco-Prussian War, and was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Montretout at the age of forty.

Rochebrune was born in Vienne in Isère, France, to an impoverished family. When he was fourteen he began an apprenticeship in a printer's shop. He then joined the French Army. He served in the 17th Regiment of Line Infantry and, during the Crimean War, in the Zouaves formation. From 1855 to 1857 he taught French to local gentry (szlachta) in Kraków, Austrian partition of Poland. In 1857 he was a sergeant during the Franco-British expedition to China. He left French service and in 1862 moved to Warsaw, at the time part of the Russian-controlled Congress Poland. A short while later he moved on to Kraków, where he opened a fencing school. The school soon became a sort of military academy (the only one of its kind in the Austrian partition of Poland), which ended up training many of the future Polish officers of the January Uprising.

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