his parents and grandparents about the animals. He wanted to know more about the far-off countries where they lived. His father, Jean-Baptiste Leborgne, born in 1718, frequently traveled on business to wild-fur markets and brought back bearskins, fox, beaver, and marten furs, and many other animal pelts. Sometimes he traveled as far as Scotland, and he dreamed of going to the Indies. His wife was against this, but he passed his dream on to his son. His mother, Hélène Gabet, born in 1744, was born into a family of notaries who worked closely with the Savoy Senate. Although her family was not happy about her marriage to a fur merchant, they accepted it. Benoît was the third of the couple's seven children – three boys and three girls. One of his brothers, Antoine-François, became a monk at the monastery of Grande Chartreuse, but influenced by ideas of the French Revolution, he left and later married. His son Joseph became a notable lawyer in Turin. Benoît, who had been destined for the law, was not the only adventurer in his family. His brother Claude went to Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic. Claude was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, and later became a deputy for the island of Santo Domingo (now called Hispaniola) in the Council of Five Hundred under the French Directory. During the first empire (of Napoleon) he was named to office in Paris and took the title of Baron. This title was given to him, like the title of Count given to his brother Benoît Leborgne, by the king of Sardinia, in 1816. At the age of 17, Benoît Leborgne fought a duel with a Piedmont officer and wounded him. This cost him his chance to join the Brigade de Savoie. He therefore enlisted in the French Army. Early military career Leborgne began his military career in the north of France in 1768, as an ordinary soldier in Louis XV's Irish Regiment, directed by Lord Clare and quartered in Flanders. This regiment was made up mostly of Irish emigrants who had left Ireland for other Catholic nations in Europe; at this time Irish Catholics were disenfranchised in Kingdom of Ireland under the penal laws. During this period, many Irishmen left Ireland for the Catholic countries of Europe or for North America. Here Benoît Leborgne learned English and the rudiments of army life.