She was born with a crippled and paralyzed right arm, and a disease commonly called in those days, "Scrofula", which is a form of tuberculosis which affects the neck. In her case, it also made her neck and cheeks malformed, and not at all pleasant to look at. At times, she suffered from swelling and open, pussy sores. No one knew for sure who her parents were. Laurent Cousin may have been her father, but that was never determined for sure. She might also have been left at the doorstep as a baby, perhaps because of her deformities, or she may have been the child of Laurent's first wife, who died of the plague when Germaine was an infant.