Édouard Corbière

The Corbière family originated in Valès, a hamlet in the Haut-Languedoc (now part of the commune of Le Bez, to the east of Castres, in the Tarn département).

At the time of Édouard's birth his father was an infantry captain in the French Navy - his mother, Jeanne-Renée Dubois, had been born at Morlaix in 1768.

On his father's death in 1802, the young Édouard had no choice but to enter the navy to provide a family income.

He sailed for ten years as a long-distance captain of the Nina (an old three-master captured from the British), mainly between Le Havre and Martinique.

Under his leadership this daily newspaper rose from a tiny advertisements sheet into a first-rank organ for commercial and maritime information.