Editing Philippe Pétain (section)

==Early life==
Pétain was born into a peasant family in [[Cauchy-à-la-Tour]], in the [[Pas-de-Calais]] department, northern France, on 24 April 1856.<ref name=Atkin-2014>{{cite book |title=Pétain |last=Atkin |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Atkin |year=2014 |orig-date=1998 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1317897972 |oclc=881571631 |series=Profiles In power |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bW_XAwAAQBAJ}}</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2024}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/LH/LH280/PG/FRDAFAN83_OC17V022.htm|title=Birth certificate of Pétain, Henri Philippe Benoni Omer|last=Government of the French empire|website=culture.gouv.fr|language=fr|access-date=13 April 2020}}</ref> He was one of five children of Omer-Venant Pétain (1816–1888), a farmer, and Clotilde Legrand (1824–1857), and was their only son.<ref name=Atkin-2014/>{{page needed|date=October 2024}} His father had previously lived in [[Paris]], where he worked for photography pioneer [[Louis Daguerre]], before returning to the family farm in Cauchy-à-la-Tour following the [[French Revolution of 1848|Revolution of 1848]].<ref name=Atkin-2014/>{{page needed|date=October 2024}} One of his great-uncles, a Catholic priest, Father Abbe Lefebvre (1771–1866), served in the ''[[Grande Armée]]'' during the [[Napoleonic Wars]].<ref name=Atkin-2014/>{{page needed|date=October 2024}}

Pétain's mother died when he was 18 months old, and he was raised by relatives after his father remarried.<ref name=Atkin-2014/>{{page needed|date=October 2024}} He attended the Catholic [[boarding school]] of Saint-Bertin in the nearby town of [[Saint-Omer]], where he was an excellent student, showing an aptitude for geography and [[arithmetic]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Baussan |first=Charles |date=1918 |title=Marshal Petain |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |volume=7 |issue=28 |pages=584–595 |issn=0039-3495}}</ref> In 1875, with the intention of preparing for the [[Saint-Cyr Military Academy]], Pétain enrolled in the [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] college of Albert-le-Grand in [[Arcueil]].<ref name=Atkin-2014/>{{page needed|date=October 2024}}