Laure was born as Laure Adélaïde Constance Permon at Montpellier, the daughter of Charles Martin Permon and his wife Laure Marie "Panoria" Stefanopoli (or Stephanopoli de Comnène), to whom during her widowhood the young Napoleon Bonaparte made an offer of marriage. Her mother, Panoria, was descended from the Comnene family, the last Greek dynasty from the Empire of Trebizond. The Martin de Permon family, after various vicissitudes, settled at Paris, and Bonaparte certainly frequented their house a good deal after the downfall of the Jacobin party in Thermidor 1794.