Edwards was born in
Constantinople, the son of Charles Edwards (an English doctor posted to the Orient, and the personal physician to
Fuad Pacha in
Cairo) and his French wife Emilie Caporal (from
Montauban). Edwards studied in
Paris before beginning his press career with
Le Figaro in 1876. There he became known for his reports and, three years later, he moved to
Le Gaulois as an editor, then becoming chief editor of 'échos' (short articles devoted to a famous figure or events in a famous figure's life). On both these papers he nurtured relationships and built up a valuable network of contacts. In 1881, he edited
Le Clairon and married the sister of the famous doctor
Jean-Martin Charcot, whose other daughter remarried to
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, future president of the Conseil. Edwards was contacted a few months later by a group of American financiers, Chamberlain & Co, who asked him to take control of the creation of
Le Matin, a French adaptation of the British daily newspaper
The Morning News.
Le Matin 's first issue came out on 26 February 1884, but Edwards quickly became opposed to the financiers' aims for the paper and so decided to form his own newspaper,
Le Matin (France). Three months later, Edwards' new paper was outselling
Le Matin, and so he bought
Le Matin from its owners and merged the two papers. Undertaking modernisation of the resulting paper, he began using modern technologies such as the
telegraph and signing great writers such as
Jules Vallès and the
député Arthur Ranc.
Le Matin 's political line reflected Edwards' own convictions, which favoured moderate republicans and opposed
Boulangisme and
socialist ideas. The new press magnate mixed in the highest circles, obtaining the
Légion d'honneur, but also with dubious politicians. He used his paper to support those circles and to defend those politicians, until his implication in the
Panama scandals came to light. In 1895 he sold
Le Matin to the banker
Henri Poidatz and launched new projects, financing the illustrated journal
Le Petit Bleu de Paris and creating
Le Petit Sou for his own political ends. (1913), portraying Gabrielle Colonna-Romano A millionaire personality known to all Paris, he bought
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
hermitage at
Montmorency as well as the
Théâtre de Paris and its adjoining casino. He even wrote short comedies and operettas himself, such as
Par Ricochet, presented at the
Théâtre des Capucines in 1906, or other pieces intended for the
Grand Guignol. He was also highly thought of among women of the time, marrying in succession Miss Drouart,
Hélène Bailly,
Jeanne Charcot and then, in 1905,
Misia Godebska, the "queen of Paris". He accepted an offer to run the conservative paper
Le Soir in 1910, bought back in 1873 from the baron
Georges de Soubeyran. In 1909, he had married his fifth wife, the actress
Ginette Lantelme, who mysteriously fell from Edwards' yacht and drowned in a river cruise on the
Rhine on 25 July 1911. He died in March 1914 of a severe case of
influenza. == Sources and bibliography ==