Little is known of Baret's childhood or young adulthood. She later told Bougainville that she had been orphaned and lost her fortune in a lawsuit before taking to disguising herself as a man. Her mother died 15 months after Jeanne was born and her father when she was 15. Historians agree that some details of the story she gave Bougainville were a fabrication to shield Commerson from complicity in her disguise. Burgundy was at this time one of the more backward provinces of France in terms of the condition of the peasant classes, and it is likely that Baret's family was quite impoverished.