Gambit’s origins are shrouded in mystery. Born with red pupils on black eyes, he was presumably abandoned at birth. The baby was stolen by the New Orleans chapter of the Thieves Guild - one of several guilds that traced their ancestry back to a mythical, old kingdom, predating known history. The Thief Guild of New Orleans referred to him as “le diable blanc” – the white devil - and were aware that he was prophecies to play an important part in their future and, strangely, in their past. The child was stolen for the Antiquary, a powerful guild member and historian. Jean-Luc LeBeau, patriarch of the New Orleans Thief Guild, hated the thought of a child having to grow up a slave of the Antiquary, so he made a deal with him (before he was eventually exiled from the Guild), freed the boy and placed him with Fagan’s mob instead – a group of child thieves led by an expatriate guild member named Fagan.

Remy grew up to be a pickpocket. When he was about eight years old, he saw a few men threatening a beautiful blond girl his age and hurried to help her. There was actually no need, as the girl – Bella Donna Boudreaux – was the daughter of the patriarch of the Assassin’s Guild and trained in the killing arts. Bella Donna and Remy would become best friends and eventually fall in love with each other.

Remy tried to rob Jean-Luc LeBeau one day when he was about ten (a meeting that had, no doubt, been orchestrated by Jean-Luc) and was caught. LeBeau adopted the young boy into his own family. As Bella Donna and Remy were in love with each other anyway, their fathers intended to have them marry to ensure lasting pace between the two guilds. The teenagers were reluctant, feeling they were too young, but agreed to marry when they turned eighteen. [Gambit (3rd series) #1]

Sometime during his teens, Remy’s mutant talent to charge inanimate objects with kinetic energy became active. At the age of fifteen, Remy tried to shepherd his cousin, Etienne, through the tilling, the Thieves' Guild rite of passage. In Spain, Granada, they were captured by the gorgeous but cruel Candra, who mysteriously claimed to have met Remy before. She was buying a shipment of children from the monstrous Pig; and he took Remy and Etienne to his PigPen training facility, intending to sell them to the Viper. Remy, still learning about his own powers, blew their way out of their cells and then blew up the Hydra airship. The Pig caught Etienne and beat on Remy, who picked up a spilled deck of cards and found his motif of throwing charged cards, taking the Pig’s eye out in the process. Both boys fell into the ocean. While Remy was rescued by a fishing trawler, Etienne drowned. [Gambit (3rd series) #6]

A few months before his arranged marriage, Remy visited Paris with his adoptive brother, Henri. Remy was to earn his place as a member of the Thieves Guild through his own rite of passage. He was to steal a valuable jewel – l’Etoile du Tricherie - from a young jewel thief named Genevieve Darcenaux, who had purloined it from its rightful owner, Herzog. Herzog, in turn, had put Sabretooth on the young woman’s trail. Saving the woman, Remy earned Creed's enmity.

The killer watched as Remy used his wiles to beguile Genevieve, making her fall in love with him and finally stealing the jewel from her. Sabretooth kidnapped both Genevieve and Henri and forced Remy to give him back the jewel and choose between their lives as he dropped both of them from one of the spires of Notre-Dame. Remy chose to save his brother, realizing too late that the dying Genevieve had truly loved him. [X-Men (2nd series) #33]

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