From Normandy to Monaco: Leo XIV’s French roots

Born in Chicago on September 14, 1955, Robert Francis Prevost is American by birth and culture. However, his ancestry is remarkably diverse. It combines French, Italian, Spanish, Louisiana Creole, Haitian, and French-Canadian roots.

Behind this family history lies a vast geography of migration. His ancestors traveled from the Norman countryside and the Principality of Monaco to the banks of the Mississippi River, and from the Caribbean to Quebec, before finally converging in Chicago.

The most direct French connection is his paternal grandmother, Suzanne Fontaine. She was born in Le Havre (in the Normandy region of France) in 1894 and died in 1979, meaning the future pope may have known her well. The daughter of pastry chefs from Calvados and the Pays de Caux regions, she emigrated to the United States in 1915. 

There, she fell in love with a Sicilian immigrant named Salvatore Riggitano, whom she eventually married. Born in 1876, Riggitano was significantly older and worked as a professor of Romance languages, including French.

Their children did not take their father’s surname. Instead, they adopted the name “Prevost.” This was the maiden name of the young Norman immigrant’s mother, Jeanne Eugénie Prévost, who lived from 1864 to 1933. They simplified the spelling by dropping the accent mark to comply with American administrative customs.

Salvatore himself used the name John (or Jean) Prevost in the United States, according to genealogical research based on American administrative records. This name change was likely because his relationship with Fontaine began as an extramarital affair. He was married to a woman named Daisy Hughes at the time, and adopting a new name likely helped avoid a public scandal.

The couple’s first child, John Centi Prevost, was born in near-secrecy in 1917. His pregnant mother had to leave Illinois for Canada, eventually giving birth in New York State. This uncle of the pope passed away in 1996. He was the older brother of the Holy Father’s father, Louis Marius Prevost, who was born in Chicago in 1920 and died in 1997. John was a Francophone and an authentic Francophile. He became a French professor and defended his doctoral dissertation in French at the University of Chicago in 1952, writing about dandyism in France between 1817 and 1839. The pope’s father was also a language teacher and later became a high school principal.

The French history of Pope Leo XIV, however, is older and broader than his paternal line alone. On the maternal side, his mother, Mildred Agnes Martinez, belonged to a family from New Orleans’ Creole community of color. Records show that several of his 19th-century ancestors were free people of color.

This branch of the family is deeply rooted in the unique history of French Louisiana, its Creole populations, and its historical ties to the Caribbean. Notable families in this lineage include the Baquié family—some of whom originated in Guadeloupe—as well as the Grambois, Lemelle, and Grandpré families.

This genealogy highlights a French presence that extends far beyond Europe. It passes through Guadeloupe, French Louisiana, and the Creole society of New Orleans. The pope’s great-grandmother, Eugénie Grambois, was born in New Orleans in 1838. She was baptized on January 18, 1840, at the city's St. Louis Cathedral. Her baptismal certificate is written in French, which was the language her family spoke at home.

For the generation of the pope’s great-grandparents, Napoleon I’s sale of Louisiana to the United States in 1803 (the Louisiana Purchase) was still a relatively recent event, and it occurred during the lifetimes of people in their social circle.

In 1864, Eugénie married Ferdinand David Baquié, who was also a Francophone. Their daughter, Louise Baquié, married Joseph Nerval Martinez. The couple later settled in Chicago, where their daughter Mildred—the pope’s mother—was born in 1911.

Robert Francis Prevost never knew his maternal grandparents due to unusually large generational gaps. His mother was 44 years old when he was born, and she herself was born when her mother was 43.

Going back even further, post-election genealogical research traces his roots to New France (French colonies in North America) and Quebec through the Boucher de Grandpré family. This branch reportedly connects the pope to Pierre Boucher, a major figure in New France. Born in Mortagne-au-Perche in 1622, Boucher later became the governor of Trois-Rivières and founded the city of Boucherville.

Ultimately, Pope Leo XIV is the product of a complex family history where metropolitan France, colonial New France, the French Caribbean, Creole Louisiana, and modern America all intersect.

A more recent discovery adds an unexpected chapter to this story: Monaco. Research in the principality’s archives established a Monegasque ancestry on the maternal side of Pope Leo XIV that dates back to at least the 16th century.

Philippe Orengo, Monaco’s ambassador to the Holy See, explained that this research was undertaken for the pope’s visit to the principality on March 28, 2026. Prince Albert II presented the American pontiff with a genealogical report specially prepared for him. It was compiled by Thomas Fouilleron, director of the Archives and the Library of the Prince's Palace, with the help of another archivist.

“The objective was to determine the maternal line of the pope, which features a certain number of Monegasque ancestors going back to at least the 16th century and whose presence in Monaco lasted until 1713,” Orengo noted. Researchers relied on “baptismal, marriage, and burial certificates, as well as notarized marriage contracts.”

They also had to use paleographic techniques to decipher some of the old handwriting. The ambassador recalled that the territory of the principality was much larger at the time. Menton and Roquebrune were part of Monegasque territory, naturally broadening the scope of the archives.

This branch leads directly to Marie-Thérèse Gravesana, who was born in 1692 and died in 1748. She is the maternal sixth great-grandmother of Pope Leo XIV. On February 20, 1713, she married Ignace César Hansi in Monaco. Hansi was originally from the Vaucluse region of France and worked as a musician in the service of Prince Antoine I. “Among the ancestors of the pope, the Hansi-Gravesana couple was the last to live in Monaco,” Orengo pointed out.

A few months after their wedding, the family left the principality for Marseille, and some of their descendants later made their way to the Caribbean. “In the West Indies, part of the family arrived in Pointe-à-Pitre, and from Pointe-à-Pitre they went to New Orleans,” the ambassador detailed. “It was from New Orleans that they migrated to the interior of the United States, eventually arriving in Chicago.” Lastly, it was in Chicago that Mildred Martinez married Louis Prevost, the father of the future pope, in 1949.