Originally from New Orleans (Louisiana, United States), his father, Edgard Ambroise Edmunds, was a free Creole, director of a trading company. His mother was a Métis whose father, Prosper Foy, was a French immigrant from Orleans. At the École Polytechnique, when he went to 2nd year (he is ranked 125th out of 144) he was chosen with 50 other students (including Ferdinand Foch) to join in advance the Artillery and Engineering Application School, which has just be moved from Metz due to the war. Before joining this school in January 1873 he received condensed 2nd year courses for 4 months. He resigned from the Artillery and Engineering Application School along the way. He quickly returned to the United States. In New Orleans he first taught at the Sumner Boys ’School, before joining the main school in New Orleans, which provoked the scandalized reaction of the white supremacists, who refused to accept this nomination. Edmunds teaches in this high school before a political change forced him to teach in schools and high schools for