Émile Combes
Émile Justin Louis Combes (; 6 September 183525 May 1921) was a French statesman and freemason who led the Lefts Bloc's (French: Bloc des gauches) cabinet from June 1902 to January 1905. Career Émile Combes was born on 6th September 1835, in Roquecourbe, Tarn, the sixth child of Jean Combes, a dressmaker, and Marie-Rose Bannesborn. He first learned Latin from his public schoolteacher and then from his godfather and cousin, a priest named Jean Gaubert. Gabriel Merle, biographer of Émile Combes, describes Jean Gaubert: "He has the prestige and authority of the priesthood and education. He is obeyed. And if he demands sacrifices, he also imposes them on himself. His insistence that one of his younger cousins should become a priest is astonishing. Having failed with Philippe around 1840 and Émile in 1847, he missed his last attempt with Henri around 1860." Thanks to his knowledge of Latin, twelve-year-old Émile Combes entered the fourth year of the minor seminary in Castres. His godfather supported him financially through his studies, first at the seminary; then at the École des Carmes, an ecclesiastical school where future priests wishing to study at the Sorbonne were trained; and finally at the Grand Séminaire d'Albi,