COMBES, Jusrix Louts EMILE ( 1S35—). A French statesman, horn at Roquecourbe (Tarn). Educated in a Catholic seminary, he devoted himself to philosophic study, took orders, and in 1860 received the degree of doctor of letters for theses on scholastic metaphysics and on the psy chology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. But he sud denly gave up his purpose to become an ecclesias tical professor, studied medicine, took his degree in 1867, and settled at Pons. Eight years later he became mayor of that town. In 1379 he was chosen to the Conseil-General. Defeated by Joli bois in the elections for ISS1, lie was elected to the Senate in ISS5, soon became a leader of the Democratic Left, and took a special interest in matters of hygiene and education. He was viee president of the Senate in 1893 and 1S94, but resigned from that position in IS95 to accept the Ministry of Education in the Cabinet of Bour geois, and was viciously attacked by the press and by Waldeck-Rousseau, then more closely al lied with the Clerical Party, as a turncoat who used his own ecclesiastical training to help him spy on the Clerical Opposition. But he stayed
in the Ministry only a little more than six months, and only showed his readiness for edu cational reform, with which he had been con nected before. as a member of the educational budget of 1S91 and 189•. and author of a report on the condition of French schools in Algiers. In June, 1902, Conibes took up the difficult task of forming a Ministry to succeed the unusually successful and long-lived cabinet of Waldeck Rousseau. But lie did not hesitate, even in the task of carrying out to its logical extreme the Association Law of the Waldeck-Rousseau Min istry. By the terms of this law the Premier not alone required the registration of orders, but used the purely optional power of closing minor rural schools. The opposition to this apparent attack on the Church, and evident move against the anti-Republican orders, took the form of armed resistance in some of the outlying dis tricts, especially Finistere; but the Government was tirm, and the middle of September saw the excitement abated and the Cabinet secure.