She was born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne in Marcourt, Rendeux, to Pierre Terwagne (b. 1731) and Anne-Élisabeth Lahaye (1732–1767). Her mother died after giving birth to her third child, leaving Anne-Josèphe alone with her father and two brothers; Pierre-Josèphe (b. 1764) and Josèphe (b. 1767). After her mother died, she was sent to live with her aunt in Liège and was put into a convent school where she learned how to sew. About a year after Anne-Josèphe began school, her aunt married and stopped paying for her school. Anne-Josèphe fled back to her father after he remarried because she was forced to be a house maid and tend to her aunt's children.