Early Years
Born in Paris, Mathieu de Montomorency was the son of Mathieu Paul Louis de Montmorency, vicomte de Laval (1748–1809), a scion of one of the oldest noble families in France, and his wife, Catherine Jeanne Tavernier de Boullongne (d. 1838), the daughter of an aristocratic French planter in Guadeloupe. His mother's illegitimate mulatto half-brother was the famous Chevalier de Saint-Georges. His father, a colonel of the Auvergne regiment, was appointed a premier gentilhomme de la chambre to King Louis XVI of France's younger brother, the Comte de Provence, in 1780. However, when Catherine was denied the corresponding rank of dame pour accompagner to the prince's wife, Marie-Joséphine, due to her relatively low birth, Laval resigned his post in Provence's household.
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