Edmond-Charles Genêt, born in Versailles in 1763, was the ninth child and only son of a French civil servant, Edmond Jacques Genet (September 11, 1726 – September 11, 1781), head clerk in the ministry of foreign affairs.
The elder Genet had analyzed British naval strength during the Seven Years' War and monitored the progress of the American Revolutionary War.
Genêt had been a prodigy who could read French, English, Italian, Latin, Swedish, and German by the age of twelve.
At eighteen, Genêt had been appointed court translator, and in 1788 had been sent to the French embassy in Saint Petersburg.
Over time, Genêt had become disenchanted with the ancien régime, learning to despise not just the French monarchy but all monarchical systems, including Tsarist Russia under Catherine the Great.
In 1792, Catherine had declared Genêt persona non grata, calling his presence "not only superfluous but even intolerable."
The same year, the Girondists had risen to power in France and appointed Genêt to the post of minister to the United States.
The Citizen Genêt affair begin in 1793 when he is dispatched to the United States to promote American support for France's wars with Spain and Britain.
Genêt arrives in Charleston, South Carolina, on the warship Embuscade on April 8.
Instead of traveling to the capital, Philadelphia, to present himself to U.S. President George Washington for accreditation, Genêt stays in South Carolina, where he is greeted with enthusiasm by the people of Charleston, who throw a string of parties in his honor.
Genêt's goals in South Carolina are to recruit and arm American privateers who will join French expeditions against the British.
He commissions four privateering ships in total, including the Republicaine, the Anti-George, the Sans-Culotte, and the Citizen Genêt.
Working with French consul Michel Ange Bernard Mangourit, Genêt organizes American volunteers to fight Britain's Spanish allies in Florida.
