Charles Emile Wickersheimer was born on 22 February 1849 in the small village of Handschuheim near Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin.

[2] His father was the village schoolmaster, but soon obtained a teaching post in the town of Strasbourg, where Charles Emile attended the lycée.

He was described in the school's register as "Light brown hair, no beard, strong nose, blue eyes, small mouth, dimpled chin, oval face".

[2] He graduated in 1870 to enter the École des Mines de Paris, but left to volunteer in the army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

[1][3] While at Carcasonne he was involved in the project for a maritime canal in Le Midi, which he popularized in public speeches.

[2] He fought the proposed surtax on cereals, voted for the expulsion of the princes, against indefinite postponement of constitutional revision, for prosecution of three deputies of the far-right Ligue des Patriotes, against the proposed Lisbonne law[a] defining and restricting the freedom of the press, for the prosecution of General Georges Ernest Boulanger.

On 20 April 1893 he ran in the by-election caused by the death of Lasbeysses, deputy for the Pamiers constituency of the Ariège department, and decisively defeated Julien Dumas in the second round.