Louis-Joseph Antoine was born on 7 June 1846 in Mons-Crotteux, Belgium at a place called "In the Chapel", the youngest of a large family, which belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. His mother was Catherine Castille, born in 1797. He was raised in the Priesse street and attended primary school in Mons. From the age of twelve, Louis was employed as a coal miner, following in the footsteps of his father. One day, while working at the mine, his lamp went out without apparent reason, which he interpreted as a divine sign that he should abandon this work. He worked for two years in the mine, then was a steelworker in the Cockerill factory in Seraing. He was enrolled in the militia of Belgium in 1866, and filled his military obligations in Bruges. During the Franco-Prussian War, he accidentally killed a comrade; although there was no legal action, this event led him to question the meaning of life. After marrying Jeanne Catherine Collon on 15 April 1873, while he was a hammerer, he became the father of a son, Louis Martin Joseph, born in Hamborn, Prussia on 23 September 1873, and baptized five days later in the Catholic Church of St. John. Then the family went to Belgium in August 1876, where Antoine bought a horse and became a vegetable vendor. In 1878, he began to suffer from recurring stomach aches. In February 1879, he returned to Poland where he was hired as hammerer chief by Mr. Pastor in the Pragua steelworks; there his wife ran a school canteen. Five years later, the family moved to Jemeppe-sur-Meuse (Belgium), where he built twenty houses for workers. On 5 February 1886, Antoine was sentenced to a fine of two francs on the grounds of physical violence on Denis Collon on 10 October 1885. Until 1900, he was a portier and a collector of Lexhy factory.