He was born Laurent Gouvion in Toul, Three Bishoprics (now Meurthe-et-Moselle), the eldest child of Jean-Baptiste Gouvion, a tanner, and his wife Anne-Marie Mercier.
He went to Rome when he was eighteen in order to study painting, but, although he continued his artistic studies after his return to Paris in 1784, he never adopted the profession of a painter.