Sara Letitia Yorke was born in the Rue de Courcelles in Paris on February 19, 1847. Sara's parents moved back to the States when she was only ten, leaving their daughters to attend boarding school in France. She lived in Paris from 1858 through 1862 under the guardianship of , who inspired Stevenson's early interest in archaeology and Egyptology. During this time she met the Duke of Morny, half-brother of Napoleon and prominent figure in the French Intervention in Mexico, a conflict with which she would soon become profoundly familiar. In 1862, Sara departed France for Mexico by sea, about which she wrote: