 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.Édouard was the third of four children.